


Candid

by northerntrash



Series: Greyhame and Stein [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Thorin, Gandalf is a Troll, M/M, Photographer Bilbo, So is Balin, basically no one is taking Thorin's shit anymore, everything else is pretty much fluff, explicit scenes in chapter three, not a coffee shop au, stupid nephews, though they do spend a lot of time in a coffee shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-01-25 22:05:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1664141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thorin wasn't entirely sure why there was a six-foot candid photograph of him hanging in this exhibition, but he was going to wring the neck of whoever had put it there.</p><p>In which Bilbo is a photographer, Thorin an accidental model, and Gandalf just likes to make trouble for everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was so tempted to call this #NoFilter, but managed to resist.

Bilbo had taken the photograph without much thought or concern: it had been at the end of a long day of interviews and meetings, and he had been feeling a little fed up. Staggering out of the elegant Greyhame Gallery, he had turned almost immediately into the place across the street that the curator – an eccentric fellow, but an old family friend with unquestionable taste in all things, including coffee – had recommended.

“I’ll be out to join you once I’ve polished a few things off in here, dear boy – order me an _Einspaenner_ and breathe for a little while.”

He would have liked to object to the clear dismissal, and the fact that at the age of thirty five he was hardly what anyone could describe as a ‘dear boy’, but knew from bitter experience that there was no point to it. Instead he resolved to order Gandalf nothing, as the curator no doubt expected, in a form of silent protest instead.

Gandalf was quite used to this kind of thing though, and would probably just _twinkle_ in that disheartening way over his horn rimmed glasses, as if everything you were doing was highly amusing, and nothing at all to do with him.

 _Café Stein,_ written in delicate gold cursive, decorated the misted windows, and even from outside the place had the air of the old world, an inherent sophistication that made the hairs on the back of his neck prick uncomfortably. Though he was always neatly turned out, a long day of dealing with interviewers and talking about his work had left him a little more rumpled than he would have liked. As he pushed open the door he caught sight of a slightly snobbish sign, handwritten on cream paper in a flourishing style that only further added to the old-world charm.

He paused, one hand still on the door, to read that the place was a _Wiener Kaffeehaus,_ rather than your more typical branch of branded coffeehouse.

No wonder Gandalf liked it so much – the curator had spent many years travelling around the world in his own personal quest to find the most interesting and unique exhibits for his gallery, and Vienna in particular had been a favourite of his.

And his mother’s, for that matter. Gandalf’s own house was much like a gallery itself, but in his sitting room above the fireplace was a photograph of his mother’s, of two people walking in the gardens of the Schloß Schönbrunn. It had been winter, frost patterning the ground, the long hedgerows of the pathways stretching off into the evening mist like an ethereal dream. His mother had loved the winter.

His irritation had slipped now into a fond sort of nostalgia, only to resurface when he realised that that had probably been Gandalf’s intention all along.

The conniving bastard.

Bilbo pushed the door open and slipped in, closing it behind himself quickly on the cool weather. Though it was only October, it was already promising to be a cold winter, but inside the _Kaffeehaus_ was warm and inviting, lit with dim lighting that reflected off the highly polished dark wooden tables. The walls were panelled with a similar dark wood to a certain height, after which they were painted the same cream as the ceiling, which had what looked to be original mouldings. The floor was wide, scarred floorboards, a little uneven and creaky in places. It reminded him of his family home a little, and found himself relaxing despite the officious unfriendliness of the waitress, who led him to a small booth with a huff at his oversized portfolio and camera bag.

Certainly it was much more than your standard Starbucks, and no doubt it fit in well with this corner of the city. Nicknamed the ‘Old Quarter’, this was where you went to for museums: the larger, national ones, and the smaller, privately owned galleries, like Greyhame.  The streets were wide, and still cobbled in some places: many had been pedestrianized and populated by street cafes. There wasn’t a chance in hell he would have been able to buy a place around here with the speed that they got snapped up: he had been lucky that Gandalf owned a flat that he was willing to rent to him for an improbably low amount. The buildings were old and beautifully decorated with stone mouldings, large windows letting in the light: the companies that kept offices around here were the ones with money to burn and the sort of prestige that could only be earned through lengthy existence: he had heard that it was a six _year_ waiting list to get your hands on office space around here.

Which explained the number of sharply dressed individuals sat around the place: he was glad that he was wearing a suit, or else he would have felt quite out of place.

The _Kaffeehaus_ was one L-shaped room on the corner of the building, the misted windows running long the outside length of it kept the place private, with an air of comfortable exclusiveness, though in the middle of the day would no doubt have left it feeling bright, as well.

The dark of night had already started to creep in though, and the dimmed yellow lighting left it feeling cosy, despite the high ceilings and bare wooden floors.

Bilbo sank back into the cushioned booth with a sigh after catching another, equally unfriendly waitress and ordering an _Einspaenner_ – and, begrudgingly, one for Gandalf, too.  He was quite thankful that though days like this were a necessity in his line of work, they came few and far between. He didn’t think he would be able to do such a thing on a regular basis.

No one had been more surprised than he when his photography had gone from being a pleasant past time to an actual paying career. His mother had taught him everything that she had known: she had been a travel writer, which had been how she had first come across Gandalf. Apparently they had met in Istanbul when Belladonna had been in her early twenties, abroad writing her first piece for the company that she would end up running some years later. Photography had been a hobby of hers, one that had quickly developed as she realised that dragging photographers around with her often hampered her enjoyment of a place.

He had been finishing up his Masters degree in Classical Civilisation when Gandalf had swept dramatically back into his life, offering him a job. Any graduate with half a brain cell would have jumped at the chance, but Bilbo had hesitated, for just a moment, because he had thought about going into teaching, not travelling around Europe with an eccentric old man that he hadn’t seen in years.

But Gandalf had just twinkled at him, in that _way,_ and he had given in.

A publishing house had recently been in touch with Gandalf about writing an autobiography of his life, though he would never expand on what he had done that caused this attention (certainly, no Google searches revealed the source of either Gandalf’s fame or his connections). The old man was inspired by the idea, but wanted instead to create a sort of anecdotal coffee-table book: glossy photographs of beautiful places interspersed with stories from his life. And that was where Bilbo had come in.

“But I’ve never been published, or even submitted any pictures! Surely there are more qualified people than me for this sort of thing?”

Gandalf had smiled.

“But you are your mother’s son, and I would have no one else.”

So Bilbo had spent eight months touring around Europe, dragging a battered rucksack and his camera through a whirlwind of adventures, and when they had come back and the book published he was surprised to learn that Gandalf was also willing to put on an exhibition of his other photos, ones that hadn’t been for the book. They had sold surprisingly well, enough to start him on an entirely unexpected but hardly unwelcome career path.

His commission work had caught him attention, in particular a series of portraits of one of the European royal families. His works had been displayed in some of the most famous museums in the world, much to his bemusement, but he still found himself at the Greyhame more than anywhere else.

It was where he had begun, after all.

And even with days like today, with exhausting interviews with arts columnists and so-called culture reporters only made worse by Gandalf’s eternal good humour and habit of deflecting questions onto Bilbo, he didn’t think he’d change it for the world.

By the time Gandalf slipped elegantly into the booth, opposite him, their drinks had arrived and his good humour returned, the heated temper he had inherited from his mother cooling quickly, as it always did, into the calm contentment that was a trait left from his father’s family.

Gandalf smiled beatifically at him.

“Well done, dear boy. A very good show, today.”

Bilbo pulled a face, but his heart wasn’t in animosity any more, particularly as the waitress had just brought over two large slices of cake for the pair of them.

“I’ve still got to get the pictures together, before anything else.”

As usual, his friend’s good humour was not to be swayed.

“I have the utmost faith in you, Bilbo, as I always do. And the new theme will fit perfectly with our twenty-five year celebrations. Why did you decide to base it around the local area and culture?”

Bilbo decided not to tell Gandalf the truth, that it was because of his gratitude to him for pushing him into a life that he had not even known he wanted. The old man didn’t need any more of an ego boost, as it was.

He shrugged, instead.

“It seemed like a nice thing to do.”

Gandalf’s beaming smile seemed to suggest, as it always did, that he knew what Bilbo really meant.

They finished their cake and coffee, and spent a relaxing couple of hours going through Bilbo’s portfolio of pictures already prepared, as well as the ones on his camera that had not been sorted and edited yet. As usual, Gandalf was able to point out the ones that Bilbo himself might have passed over, ones with potential that might otherwise have been missed. He was staring at one such picture when Gandalf took his leave, patting him on the head as he went, and with a sigh Bilbo began to gather up his possessions too.

The streetlight outside made the dark blue of the night look warm and welcoming, despite the chill: with a smile he slung his camera around his neck, rather than back in its bag, and stood to leave.

As he came to the door, however, he glanced down the other side of the L-shaped café, which he had not really looked at when coming in. It was similar to the other side but for the end, the short wall, which rather than panelled wood was made up of four floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Delicate patterns were frosted around the edges, like lacework, dark wooden benches pushed against it.

That end of the shop was mostly empty, the pooling light of one of the streetlights outside adding to the soft glow of the low lighting.

It would be a nice addition to the ‘local’ theme, Bilbo thought idly as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.

He doubted it would be used, but it would make Gandalf smile.

Bilbo took a quick picture, waved a goodbye at the still-unsmiling waitresses, and headed out into the night.

 

\--

 

His mobile buzzed angrily at him from the corner of his desk and he resisted the urge, as he did every day, to throw it out of the large windows of his office. His irritation only slightly lessened when he saw that it was his nephew calling, rather than Dwalin or Dis, who would probably only be calling to wind him up or convince him to leave the office more often. After ten years, he would have thought that they might have given up by now.

“What is it, Fili?” he answered, trying to school his voice into something that didn’t sound like was about to rip his nephew’s head off. His nephew rarely called him at work: Fili knew full well the wrath that he would incur if he interrupted something important. He would only have done so for a good reason.

Unlike Kili, who seemed to take great delight in winding his uncle up, only to watch him deflate as soon as he turned his puppy-dog eyes on him. Thank god for Dis, who had developed some sort of incredible resistance to them, or no one would ever control him.

“Um. Are you in the office today?”

Thorin sat back in his chair, wondering if he could get away with pretending to be on site to avoid whatever plan his nephews had for him. Unfortunately he loved them too much to actually lie to them.

“I am.”

“Have you taken your lunch break yet?”

He could hear Kili babbling in the background, laughing at something, and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

“No, why? What are the two of you doing? Why are you not in class?”

The unmistakable sound of a phone being wrestled away from one brother by another was his response, followed by the bright and airy voice of his younger nephew.

“We don’t have class _every_ day, Uncle. Besides, Fili’s here for a project.”

“ _Where_?” snapped Thorin. God help him, he loved his nephews, but the pair of them could test a saint’s patience, which he definitely was not.

“At Greyhame Gallery, you know, the one opposite that coffee place you like that you told Balin not to tell Mum about so we wouldn’t bother you there?”

Thorin gritted his teeth. Balin was _dead._

“You know the one, Uncle? With the stained glass and the arches? That looks a bit like a church?”

“Yes, I know it.”

Even if he hadn’t been an architect, and in front of his favourite not-so-secret coffee house, the unusual front of the building would have stuck in his mind. As it was, his childhood memories were mainly of riding on his father’s shoulders, having architectural features pointed out to him, and even now he found it impossible to walk past a beautiful building without considering it with the eye of an architect. Dis, who lectured in English Literature, said she had the same problem with books: she could never read one and simply switch off the Lit major part of her brain. Thorin never thought of it as a problem, though- he _liked_ buildings.

“Well, we think you should come and meet us here. We’ve got something to show you.”

“Kili, put your brother back on.”

The shuffling of a phone being passed back again, interspersed with too much laughing for his comfort. They only found things this amusing when something highly embarrassing was at stake.

“Hi, Uncle. Sorry, he stole the phone.”

“Fili, what’s going on?”

His nephew paused, which was never a good sign. Had Fili not wanted to go into architecture, Thorin would have had no problems hiring him within the company- and not just because he wanted to keep the firm as much a family-run company as he could. Like his brother, Fili was undeniably charming and able to talk anyone into _anything,_ which would have made him a valuable asset on a sales pitch. His silence was damning.

“I’m not going to like it, am I?”

“Um, possibly not?”

Thorin sighed. “Kili hasn’t done anything stupid, has he?”

“Nothing to do with Kili, Uncle. I promise.” Both uncle and nephew ignored the protest from said troublemaker, as well as the muttering that followed. “But you really should come and see this.”

He stared out the window. The December weather would no doubt be refreshingly cold, and the pale sunlight that lit up his office did look inviting. It would be a shame to spend his entire day in his office again, as he had done the last few days, arriving before the sun was fully up and leaving in the dark. He enjoyed winter weather, but not the lack of daylight: there was something incredibly depressing about arriving and leaving work in the dark. It made the hours you spent there seem so much longer than in the summer.

Fili’s voice on the other end of the line was warm: he knew he had already won. For all they annoyed him half the time, Thorin couldn’t say no to his nephews, just as he couldn’t turn down anything from his own younger siblings. 

“Come on, you’d be going to that café place anyway. It’s just over the road, and we’ll buy you lunch afterwards.”

He groaned, and his nephew took that for the acceptance that it was.

“We’ll meet you outside in an hour!”

Fili hung up the phone before Thorin had a chance to say anything else, and he put it back down on his desk with a sigh. He had a feeling that, whatever this grand surprise was, he wasn’t going to like it in the slightest.

He was right.

Had he known how right he was, he probably would have just gone back to work, ignoring his nephew’s and possibly calling security to inform them that Fili and Kili were no longer allowed in the building. Some may have called that an overreaction: Thorin was not one of those.

But he didn’t know, and instead he worked out the rest of the hour before pulling on his coat and striding through the cool late autumn afternoon to meet the two of them.

He should have known to run when he saw the matching grins the pair of them were wearing, lounging outside the gallery, attracting rather a large amount of attention from passers-by.  The pair of them had grown into their looks, after several awkward teenage years: Fili skimmed just underneath six foot, his strong jaw accentuated by his designer stubble, solid build obvious under his open coat. No one could agree if his fair hair was from his father or Thorin’s younger brother, but it was kept relatively short, in contrast to his brother. Kili, though younger, was taller than him – just taller than Thorin now, though he was in denial about that – and had inherited the same dark hair his mother and Thorin, worn scruffily long and pulled back into a pony tail most of the time.

No doubt the pair of them made an attractive sight, that beaming smile adding to their charm, but he should have recognized it for what it was.

That smile meant trouble.

The two had flanked him as soon as he had arrived, dragging him through the entranceway – _we’ve already paid for your ticket, Uncle, come on_ – and through the permanent galleries. He had been in here before, though not so much to take in the collection. It was years ago, when he had been designing that stained glass feature, and had spent several hours sketching in here for inspiration. He had cast his eye over the exhibits though, out of politeness, and remembered them being an odd collection of artefacts and artworks from around the world, not seeming to follow any logical time frame or theme, as if someone with an excellent eye for quality had simply wandered around, picking things that caught his attention.

But his nephews had pulled him past all that, to one of the side wings, which according to the sign was for changing exhibitions, the artwork for sale. The great stone arches of the room were interspaced with huge white boards, on which a number of large photographs were hung. Some smaller ones were hung in sequences, the larger ones standing alone, some as tall as he was. Most of them, he noticed, had already been marked as sold.

Clearly a successful exhibition, then, though his nephews had moved him through the room too quickly for him to spend any real time looking at them. A few showed crowds, streets, one of an old man sat on a bench. There were a few city-scapes though, and a number of architectural features captured in high detail. Most were black and white, the shadows on them making even mundane features strangely interesting.

He slowed as he caught sight of a street he recognized, close to his office. A local artist, then.

Another one caught his eye: the high archways of this very gallery, the colours of the window reflected off the glass and onto the stonework.

That would look good in the office lobby, he found himself thinking absentmindedly, as his nephews slowed to a stop.

And there it was.

“What the hell is this?”

Fili, to the one side, shrugged. Kili, on his other, was just grinning.

“You’ve got to admit, Uncle, it is a pretty good picture.”

He had to admit no such thing.

Thorin was staring blankly up at the canvas. It was perhaps six foot long, and four foot high; a black and white photograph of his favourite café. It was in face the corner that he normally preferred: one of the small wooden tables at the end that faced the tall mirrored wall. He liked sitting there because the light from the window reflected off the mirror, making it the brightest corner of the place: essential when he was pouring over detailed drawings, measurements or equations. He would not admit that the other reason he liked sitting here was so, in moments of idleness or distraction, he could observe the rest of the café without anyone noticing: people watching without the risk of awkward eye contact.

Only it seemed that someone was paying him back for that habit.

Because there he was. The image was of the entire mirrored wall and the tables and chairs in front of it, all empty except the one that he was sat on. His back was to the camera, but his face was reflected in the mirror, staring back in the direction of the cameraman, distracted. His tie was loose, the lighting soft: it must have been at the end of the day then. Perhaps last month: he had gone into _Stein_ fairly often for a break before returning to continue on the ‘scraper project. They’d all been pulling late nights to get it finished to their usual high standards.

He looked like he’d had a few late nights in the photograph, the shadow of stubble across his jaw and his eyes more tired than usual. His hair was a little rumpled, as if he had just pushed it back from his face with both hands, as he often did when stressed. One hand held the delicate cup on the table, the other was up by his face, his forefinger pulling gently at his lower lip as he sat, deep in thought.

Thorin was not entirely sure how long he had been stood staring at the giant photograph of himself: he only realised he had been when a couple of middle-aged women just behind the three of them began tittering behind their hands.

“I wonder who he is?”

“Very attractive, isn’t it?”

“I wonder if the artist knew him?”

“There is something _intimate_ about it, isn’t there?”

“Has it been sold yet?”

Rustlings as they glanced through the catalogue; Kili made a strange noise, as if he was trying very hard not to laugh out loud. Even Fili was smirking. Thorin shot a glance at both of his nephews, daring them to say anything.

“Ooh, apparently he discusses this one in his interview!”

The two women wandered away, still chattering away about the photograph. Thorin glared up at the likeness of himself, wondering if he would get away with burning it. Probably not. Buying it, though… so no one would ever see it again… that was a good plan. But one glance at the label saw the red mark indicating that it had been sold. Kili followed the line of his gaze, and finally let out the laugh he had been holding in.

“Just imagine Uncle, you’re _art_ now. You’ll be immortalized above someone’s mantelpiece.”

Thorin swatted the back of his head, and prayed to anyone listening that no one else found out about this. Then a horrific thought occurred to him, and he levelled his glare at the boys.

“Any word of this to your mother, or Dwalin-”

He cut himself off at their sheepish expressions and swore, gaining them a couple of disapproving looks from the other people nearby.

“They already know.”

Fili nodded.

“Sorry, Uncle.”

Kili wasn’t even trying to look apologetic, just innocent, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Thorin wondered, not for the first time, what the prison sentence was for killing wayward and trouble-making nephews. Probably too high.

“Didn't realise you’d want _being art_ to be a secret.”

Dwalin was _never_ going to let him live this one down.

 

\--

 

It was a couple of weeks before Bilbo actually thought about that picture again. It was the flurry of submitting the images for his exhibition, and he was flipping through the images on his laptop when he came across it.

He had agreed to the quick deadline in order to fit the exhibition around the anniversary of the gallery opening presuming that it would be easy to photograph an area he knew so well, an area that he had lived in for ten years or so now. In reality though, it had made it all the harder: the features that he normally would have focused on in a new place were background details to him, all the harder to spot. To his surprise – and gratification, now it was done – it had been a surprisingly hard task. But the satisfaction of a job well done thrummed through him now, and as he came across the café photograph he smiled.

It really was a lovely place, he reflected: he had been back to it a few times since then, enjoying the quiet atmosphere, excellent cakes and even warming to the disinterested waitresses.

This photograph, though…

He opened it up in his editing program, quickly straightening and cropping the image down a little, filtering it to black and white, cleaning a couple of spots and playing with the exposure a little.

It was better than he initially thought, and the softness of the lighting gave it a strange sort of intimacy. He moved the file over to the collection due to be sent over to Gandalf at the end of the day with a small smile. Gandalf was notoriously selective with his exhibitions, and Bilbo had the habit of sending over almost twice as many images as he was commissioned for, to make sure the man was happy with his selection.

It was sent off, and Bilbo celebrated with a large tumbler of brandy and his cat, perfectly content with his own company and a job well done. A few days later he had the customary call from the gallery informing him that “Mr Greyhame has made his selections”, and asking whether he would like to review them. Apparently three edits had been done on his images, and as he trusted Gandalf enough not to have done anything too drastic he declined, agreeing to come in when they had all been printed, to organise the exhibition, an area that he still insisted on full input in. 

 He regretted not reviewing the changes about half an hour in, when he came across the picture.

Bilbo stared at it for a moment, before yelling for Gandalf.

“What on earth is it, my dear boy?”

He waved at the print.

“What the hell is this?”

Gandalf pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up his nose and stared down at the picture, as if it were a great mystery that Bilbo wished to decode.

“It is your photograph.”

“It certainly is not.”

The other man sighed, and went to retrieve his laptop, which was sleek and highly efficient and looked entirely at odds with its owner, who today was wearing a double-breasted herringbone suit. Bilbo stared at the two edits of his photograph on screen, and rolled his eyes.

“You had it loaded, you knew I was going to complain.”

Gandalf did that _twinkling_ thing that Bilbo hated once again.

“I know you very well, dear.”

He sighed. He couldn’t actually fault Gandalf’s edit, all that he wanted to. The photograph had been cropped down to just the mirrors and the empty tables in front of them, the rest of the café cut out but still there in the reflection. The crop also cut out Bilbo himself, swaddled in his coat, and all customers but one, who had been sat at those tables closest to the mirror.

Bilbo swallowed.

He hadn’t really looked too hard at the man before now. His focus had been on the lighting, the room itself, the play of perspectives: most of that fell by the wayside at the sight of what was quite possibly the most beautiful man he had ever seen.

His hair was dark, swept back from his face and streaked with grey, and a little longer than you might expect from a businessman. His eyes looked light, but it was impossible to tell on the black and white canvas, and the stubble that graced his jawline only emphasised how strong it was, how sharp the cut of his cheekbones were. His suit did nothing to detract from his obviously well-built frame.

Bilbo huffed, and turned away.

“Well, fine. It can stay.”

He pretended not to hear Gandalf’s laughter, and continued organising the other canvases.

He still found his eye drawn to it on the night of the exhibition opening as he stood, glass of champagne in hand, hiding in the archways to avoid having to talk to the various artists, benefactors and reporters present. He had to admit, there was something captivating about the way the man stared outwards, deep in thought, and he noted that it was one of the first to sell: he was clearly not the only one to think so.

Despite its success, he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the nameless man he had photographed. The poor man had just been enjoying a coffee, perhaps after a stressful day at work, only to find himself the victim of an unwanted camera lens. He had never quite felt comfortable taking pictures like this: ones that showed the face of his subject without their permission. In fact, as far as he could remember, this was one of the only ones he had ever submitted for an exhibition. Photographs were intimate things, he had told more than one person when asked about it: they were a snapshot of a moment of emotion, preserving any number of feelings. These were not necessarily feelings that the photographer should be able to take and use.

There was a picture he had taken in Rome that had always stuck with him. They had gone out most days, wandering, taking in as many back streets as tourist sites. They had been in some kind of public garden, and Gandalf had leant against a statue, pulling a cigarette from his silver case.

“How long since you were last in Rome?”

Bilbo and he had not known each other all that long, back then, and the older man had seemed surprised by the question for just an instant, before smiling.

“Perhaps fifteen years, or so.”

“Why so long?”

He lit the cigarette and Bilbo had taken the picture, the smoke wreathing around his face.

Gandalf had shrugged.

“No reason.”

It was only months later, when he looked at the photograph and recalled the conversation, that he saw just how sad Gandalf had looked. It had been preserved in just an instant on camera, but the rawness of some unknown wound was powerful. It would have made a beautiful portrait, but the emotions in it were somehow private. Bilbo had known, just by looking at it, that this was an image that Gandalf would never want to have seen, or even see himself.

He still had it; he had never shown anyone.

But at the same time, the tone of the photograph could completely warp the reality of the image. This was all a guess, based on Bilbo’s feelings: perhaps it had just been an odd question, a moment of puzzlement rather than sadness, and Bilbo himself had invented the rest.

How would a person react to seeing a portrait of themselves that seemed to display a passionate emotion that they had not actually felt? It was strangely deceitful.

So Bilbo felt bad, as he looked at the unknown man, and wondered what had possessed him to approve it. Now the poor man would be sat in someone’s living room, or hallway, or in the foyer of a fancy hotel or business for the entire world to see, without his permission.

He hoped the man had been on holiday here, or had moved away: that he would never see it.

Unfortunately, as he would later find out, that was not the case at all.

He was jostled from his thoughts by the approach of a pleasantly smiling reporter on the arm of Gandalf, who was chuckling merrily.

“Bilbo, do you have a moment? My dear Miss Beckett would like to ask you a couple of questions – for the interview, you remember.”

He smiled, and allowed himself to be towed away.

 

\--

 

**If I may ask, Mr Baggins – many of us have been intrigued by one photograph in particular in your new collection. I was wondering if you could tell us anything in particular about the gentleman in ‘ _Café Stein’_?**

Bilbo Baggins, who has remained pleasantly humble throughout the entire interview, seems almost surprised by the question. He shouldn’t be – of the critical reviews of his collection, nearly all take a moment in their praise to comment specifically on this one picture, which is a deviation from his normal work (Fig. 15).

 _Well,_ he begins, a little hesitantly, _it actually was not my original intention to have it included. I took it on the day I gave the press releases for the new collection. Gandalf and I went for a coffee afterwards, in Café Stein, which is right across the street from the Greyheme. It was a quick picture, not only that I staged or planned, and I didn’t honestly notice the man until it came to the editing stages._

**So you don’t know him?**

Once more, he doesn’t seem to have anticipated my question, which makes me wonder how much of his own hype Bilbo Baggins actually listens to. Since the previews of the exhibition, the unexpected intimacy of the photograph have set the critics guessing – many have assumed that it was a portrait of a lover or family member, myself included. If Mr Baggins really doesn’t chase down the gossip on his own work, he is an even more refreshing artist than I originally thought. When I mentioned this to him, he simply laughed.

_I would hardly call myself an artist. I agree that photography is an art, but that is never a term I have applied to myself. And no, I don’t know the man._

**A lot of people have been speculating about him, actually. Have you heard any of it?**

He shakes his head, looking stunned and a little guilty.

**Well, just from conversations overheard in the exhibition opening, I know some people think he is a family member, or perhaps a friend – or possibly a lover.**

He splutters, seemingly genuinely shocked by this news. The art world is quickly intrigued by possibly artistic romances, particularly ones involving their current darlings, of which Mr Baggins certainly is.

 _Goodness, really? The poor man! He was just enjoying an evening coffee and now he has the punishment of being romantically linked to some daft photographer he’s never heard of, whose had the nerve to publish a photograph of him without his permission. I’ll be sued at this rate. I’ll lose everything before my next birthday –_ which will be his thirty-sixth, in case any of you are interested – _and I will deserve it entirely._

He says the last part with a grin, clear to make sure that is a joke, though the regret in his voice is entirely genuine. There will be many people disappointed by the news that this potential story is but fiction, though then again, perhaps not too many: Mr Baggins cuts an attractive figure and exudes the politeness of an old-world gentleman.

**You are well known for some of your portrait commissions – the series of the Sovereign Prince of Monaco and his family have become particularly well known, but your normal galleries don’t normally feature many portraits?**

_No, not at all. Portraits are a very difficult art, actually: when people know they are being photographed they rarely manage to look like themselves, because they are too concerned with looking good, and when a person doesn’t know then they can easily move, just a little, which throws off the shot you’re aiming for._

_My normal work does focus on architectural features, and local landmarks, on sculpture and city-scapes, that sort of thing. My father was a sculptor, a very talented one, which I think is why I hesitate to apply the word artist to myself: he was very much one_ [Bungo Baggins’ most famous work was ‘Bag-End’, which was a memorial for his wife]. _He really inspired a lot of my photographical interests, as did my mother_ [the ferocious Belladonna Took, who singlehandedly took over the established Took Travels Publishing house and brought it to world-wide prominence before her untimely death] _and Gandalf_ [Greyhame, of the self-named gallery he owns and runs. A serial adventurer and enigma, he took the young Bilbo under his wing, and gave him his first photographic job] _._

_I actually feel very guilty that I’ve used his image at all. It isn’t normally a thing I would do – but you’re right, there is something very soulful about him, isn’t there?_

**I think he looks very sensitive.**

Bilbo laughs then, for the first time in the interview, and it is as happy as sound as I have ever heard. His nose wrinkles in the most charming way, and I see the artist that seems so very adept at winning over even his harshest critics shine through.

_Sensitive, perhaps: I think he looks a bit grumpy, like he’s having to work late and would much rather go home and walk his dog._

**You think he has a dog? You mentioned in your artist bio that you have a cat?**

_That’s right, a bad tempered old tabby. And yes, I can see him with a dog, can’t you? He’d suit something like a wolfhound, or a husky perhaps, but I could see a relative foisting a pet on him that they can’t look after, or something like that, and it not matching him at all. Maybe a shih tzu, or a pug. And he pretends to dislike it on principle, but really he does. I think he’s a big sap. If he has kids, they’ll be able to get away with murder as long as they look at him sweetly._

**So he has a family, you think?**

This is perhaps the most animated he has been in the entire interview, lit up and laughing at the biography we are creating for this mysterious man. His face softens a little at the question.

_I think so. He looks a little worn, but in a good way: as if he has a lot of people that he worries about, and who probably worry about him, as well. I think that is the part of a big family that I always wanted: having a big support network to fall back onto._

A quick skim of his bio reminded me that not only did his mother pass away when he was sixteen, in an accident in the Alps, but his father also died only three years later.

**I know you lost your own parents quite young, and I am terribly sorry for it. Have they influenced you, in any way?**

_Of course. I don’t think I would be where I am today without them…_

_\--_

 

Thorin threw the January edition of the magazine down on the conference table, speechless.

“He’s got you pegged, hasn’t he?”

Dis was grinning over the takeout Thai food she had brought, and Thorin reached for the whiskey she had poured him before handing him the article. He didn’t normally drink when he was working, but right now he needed something particularly stiff, particularly if Dwalin and Balin’s shit-eating grins were anything to go by.

He pointed a finger at the three of them.

“Not a word of this to the boys.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes.

“As if the lads haven’t already seen it.”

He rubbed his face with both hands, pushing his hair back from his face.

“I hate you all. You are the worst family a man could ask for.”

Balin chuckled.

“I can’t believe he knew about the dog.”

Thorin glared at him.

“I don’t have a dog.”

Balin’s smile didn’t slip as he inclined his head to one side.

“Well, no, but…” he trailed off to where Dis’ elderly pug lay snoozing on Thorin’s feet. Anywhere she went, the old thing came with her, including to lunches at the office, even if Dis didn’t technically work there. And inevitably, as soon as the dog saw Thorin, he would flop down on whatever part of him he could reach, refusing to move for hours at a time. And Thorin never did quite have the heart to move him.

Thorin groaned.

“Shut up.”

Dis picked the article up, and started quoting.

“His kids will get away with murder…”

“Your kids, not mine. Not my job to discipline them.”

“A big sap.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“Grumpy.”

“I’m leaving.”

“I don’t know, Uncle. I think it makes you look pretty good.” And there was Kili, propping himself up in the doorway, hair even messier than usual. “Is there any spare food?”

Dis pushed one of the many boxes towards him; an unopened one, of which there were several. Her sons had a miraculous ability to appear out of thin air whenever food was around.

Dwalin pinched the magazine back from Dis and turned to the picture of Thorin, which had been printed in the review for the exhibition, alongside several others.

“What if any of our clients see it?”

Balin flapped a hand at him.

“What does it matter if they do? If I were you I’d step forward, it would be good exposure. Look what this Bilbo Baggins says about you – that you work hard, care about your family. Hardly negative messages.”

Thorin glared at him, betrayed.

“I expected you to be on my side.”

Balin sniffed. “I am on Oakenshield’s side.”

“Maybe you should meet him, Uncle,” said Kili, around a mouthful of rice. “That’s what Fee and I think you should do, anyway.”

Thorin frowned.

“Where is your brother?” You got one and almost inevitably you ended up with the other, unless they had unavoidable classes, and as it was a Saturday, that didn’t seem likely.

Kili swallowed his food audibly, causing his mother to wince at his manners.

“Meeting us there.”

Dis threw a paper napkin at him.

“Where?”

Kili’s eyes widened momentarily. “Oh yeah, I was supposed to be fetching you all! Fili wants us all to meet at Café Stein, apparently he has something to show us.”

After much huffing they left, leaving the sleeping pug behind, perfectly content to curl up and drool on Thorin’s expensive desk chair.  They made their way to Café Stein, over which his sister began to coo as soon as she walked in the door. Thorin groaned in his head. So much for his secret retreat from his family.

Fili waved them over from his spot on the opposite side to which Thorin normally sat, lounging in a chair facing the wall. He grinned at them, gesturing to the wall.

“Doesn’t it look good?”

Oh no.

There, on the wall, where there had previously been a large black and white photograph of a European street, hung the picture.

“Oh,” said Dis, trying to hide her laughter. “It looks even _better_ in the full size.”

Thorin found himself staring at the six-foot long portrait of himself, and for the first time in his life wished that the floor would open up and swallow him whole.

The bell above the door rang, and a dapper, older gentleman wandered in, his slightly wild grey hair at odds with his sharply tailored grey suit and waistcoat, crisp white shirt and blue silk cravat. He glanced around the café, but when his gaze landed on the family trying to hold their laughter in, he smiled.

“One _Einspaenner_ ,” he politely asked a frowning waitress, before sauntering over.

“Good afternoon.” He nodded at the group, before turning to Thorin and putting his hand out to shake. “A pleasure to meet one of my finest models.”

Thorin stared at him, a growing sense of dread in the pit of his stomach, his hand already taken and being shaken.

“Excuse me?”

“Gandalf Greyhame, of the Grayhame Gallery. We had the pleasure of displaying your wonderful portrait before it was sold. Really, we have had so much interest in your portrait, it is wonderful to finally meet you.”

Dis patted his arm. “Thorin dear, we can hear you grinding your teeth from here. Mr Greyhame, would you like to join us.”

The old man beamed.

“I would be delighted. And please, call me Gandalf.”

She smiled back, pulling out two chairs for them and sitting down opposite Fili. Kili had already thrown himself down next to his brother, and as Dis and Gandalf sat so too did Balin and Dwalin, though not before Dwalin nudged Thorin, still grinning as if this was the most fun he had had all his life.

“Can you tell us a little about my brother’s portrait? We really know very little about it.”

Gandalf smiled up as the waitress brought over his drink.

“Have you tried the Einspaenner here? You really should, the best I’ve had outside of Vienna.” He winked at Thorin’s nephews. “The sachertorte is wonderful, too.”

He turned back to Dis. “It was taken by one of my very dearest friends, it really is a lovely shot, isn’t it? The café approached me asking to reserve it for them after the previews of the exhibition – they thought it would be a lovely addition to their café.”

Dis smothered her grin behind her hand as Thorin turned his glare on her, slowly taking a seat with the rest of his family and this strange man.

“I’ve known Bilbo since he was _born,_ you know. Lovely young chap. Didn’t even notice you in the photograph at first, I had to crop it down before he even really realised you were in it. Very successful edit though, if I may say so myself!”

Thorin grimaced.

Wonderful. He might have been spared this whole ordeal had this deranged man not had a hand in editing his friend’s photographs.

“Well, we’re all glad that you did, it’s nice to see a photo of Thorin where he’s not grimacing. I’m Dis, these two are my boys, Fili and Kili. These are our cousins, Balin and Dwalin, and you’ve met my brother, Thorin, though I don’t think he thought to introduce himself.”

Kili beamed at Gandalf.

“We read the interview, the one where Bilbo Baggins talks about Uncle’s picture. We actually do have a pet pug, though it’s Mum’s, not his.”

Gandalf’s grin was perhaps equally as blinding. Thorin began to wonder if he had done something unspeakable in a previous life to suffer this embarrassment. Perhaps he’d threatened to kill someone he loved, or actually had gotten his nephews killed, he thought. That might have incurred enough guilt to last him through reincarnation to this embarrassment.

“Really? Well, I shall have to inform Bilbo. I’m sure he’d be delighted to know he is such an astute judge of character. He’s always had a knack for reading people, you know, though he didn’t quite trust me when I first met him.”

 _Shocking_ , thought Thorin.

“We’d love to meet him sometime,” chipped in Fili. “Properly thank him for seeing past Uncle’s gloomy exterior.”

_Wait, what?_

He was going to punch Dwalin if he didn’t stop grinning.

Thorin took a deep drink from the round of coffees that had been placed in front of them at some point – when had these been ordered, and the plates of what looked like sachertorte, the house specialty? Was the man a wizard, or something? – and found himself surprised by how pleasant it was. He had been expecting sweetness from the thick layer of whipped cream, but the strong coffee underneath cut through it. He pulled a plate towards him, giving in. If he was going to be publically humiliated by his family and a complete stranger, he was at least going to get cake out of it.

“Well, I’m sure Bilbo would be _more_ than delighted to meet you all. In fact, I am supposed to be meeting him here in a few minutes, so it would be no problem at all.”

Thorin choked. He had to regain control of this situation somehow.

He realised suddenly that all eyes were on him, waiting for his view on the subject. He swallowed his mouthful of cake – it really was amazing, even in awful social situations – and mustered as striking a glare as he possibly could.

“Yes, let’s meet this _photographer._ I’d be delighted to know why he thinks he has the right to go around selling other people’s images.”

Fili and Kili’s smiles shrank a little, but before anyone could say anything the bell over the door – now to Thorin’s back – rang again, and Gandalf was waving someone over.

“Bilbo, my dear boy, look at what I’ve found.”

There was a pause, and then a rather audible sigh.

“Oh dear. Gandalf, why did you sell them this photograph? The poor man _comes_ here, I doubt he really wants to look at himself while he has coffee.”

Thorin looked over his shoulder, his glare still firmly in place.

“Indeed, _he does not._ ”

Bilbo stared at the face that he had discussed so often in recent days, and swallowed.

Thorin stared back, and tried really hard not to let his frown slip.

Bilbo Baggins was not what he was expecting.

His mental image – not that he had spent much time thinking about him, at all – had been of a bedraggled, possibly bearded man, no doubt as eccentric looking as any artist one might find wandering around galleries. His mental image might have been slightly warped by the rather free-spirited art students he had known from his university days, but they were clearly way off the mark.

He was wearing pressed, dark blue jeans and a burgundy sleeveless jumper, over neat white shirt, open at the collar. Thorin found his eyes drawn almost immediately to the soft skin of his throat and collar visible there, and dragged his gaze away almost immediately.  He was… cute.

Damn it.

“Oh… erm… hello.”

Thorin stared back for a moment before remembering that this was normally the point in a conversation where you responded.

“Thorin Durin.”

“Ah… Bilbo Baggins. And, I um…”

Gandalf decided to intervene at this point, which might have been for the best.

“Bilbo, dear boy, take a seat. Thorin’s family were just saying how much they would like to meet you. Apparently they are very pleased someone has taken a picture of him where he isn’t frowning. Isn’t that lovely? Have some cake.”

Bilbo blinked, shuffling around the table whilst shooting another cautious glance at the looming portrait on the wall, and slid into the chair next to Gandalf that had been pulled out for him.

Which also put him opposite Thorin.

Who was still glaring.

 

\--

 

Bilbo was quite sure that he had never felt so awkward in all his life. It had been bad enough that the portrait had been getting so much attention, but now its subject had appeared in real life, as attractive in real life as he was on canvas, but much, _much_ more intimidating. And obviously furious.

He tried to avoid looking at him, and turned his attention instead to the two young men sat next to Thorin Durin, both of whom looked much happier to see him. He smiled, cautiously.

They beamed back.

The dark haired one waved from across the table.

“I’m Kili, this is my brother Fili, we’re Thorin’s nephews. We’re the ones who found the picture.”

Bilbo’s eyes were wide.

“O-oh?”

Kili nodded energetically, but it was Fili that answered.

“I’m an architecture student, I was writing a paper on your work on architectural features when I found out you had an exhibition running at the moment.”

Bilbo blinked, shoulders sagging a little in relief.

“Oh, I see. Wow, I didn’t know any of my work was worth academic attention. Thank you! I hope it went alright?”

Fili nodded. “My professors were very happy with it. We were pretty surprised to see a picture of our Uncle in the middle of your show, though! We called him right away.”

Gandalf laughed.

“The portrait was simply too good not to include! That is very interesting though, perhaps you could tell me a little more? Our Gallery runs a small journal, we might be interested in publishing something on one of our favourite artists!”

Fili’s face lit up, and as Gandalf leant forward to discuss it the woman sat on his other side leant back, smiling at Bilbo from across his back.

“I’m Dis, Thorin’s sister. Don’t mind his glaring, it really is a lovely photograph.”

Bilbo winced.

“I really didn’t mean for it to get so much attention, or for it to wind up in here.” He shot an apologetic glance at Thorin. “I really am sorry.”

The large, burly man next to him nudged Thorin in the side, rolling his eyes.

“Ignore him, lad. We all think it’s great fun. M’ Dwalin, this is my brother, Balin.”

Bilbo really wasn’t sure what to make of that, and tried to smile in response.  

“I mean it though,” he said, turning back to Thorin. “I understand that you’re probably furious at me right now. I probably would be as well, I mean, I just used a picture of you without even asking, and I don’t know anything about you – you might be in the witness protection scheme, or anything! I didn’t really think about the implications of it until it was too late, not that that is really an excuse or anything…”

Bilbo trailed off, suddenly aware that the rest of the table were all staring at him, and that Thorin still hadn’t said anything. In fact, his facial expression had barely moved, as if he hadn’t even heard.

But then he suddenly seemed to start, shook his head, folding his arms across his chest.

“It’s fine.”

Bilbo exhaled, just as a broad and disbelieving grin seemed to grow across Dwalin’s face. He stared between Thorin’s stony expression and the slight blush that was starting to rise on Bilbo’s expression, and then slapped his brother across the shoulders.

“C’mon, Balin, time to get back to work. Dis, come and get that damned dog before it pisses all over the office. Good to meet you, Mr Baggins, and you, Mr Greyhame.”

Was Bilbo imagining things, or did Dwalin just _wink_ at Gandalf?

Perhaps not, because now Gandalf was getting to his feet as well, smiling at Fili and Kili.

“We can discuss it further in the Gallery, I think. Bilbo, I’ll see you soon.”

Thorin’s nephews seemed about to protest, but Dwalin shot them such a venomous look that they shut up and trailed, confused, after the old man. Dwalin cuffed Thorin around the back of the head as he left, Balin and Dis giving Bilbo cheerful waves as they made their way out of the door.

Leaving just the two of them.

Bilbo bit his lip.

“Um…”

Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, eyes squeezed shut and forehead creased into a frown. Bilbo felt impossibly guilty, although he wasn’t entirely sure what for.

“Sorry about… them. They don’t know how to behave around normal people.”

Bilbo tried for a smile, which came out as surprisingly genuinely when Thorin shot him a tired, apologetic expression.

“That’s alright. I could say the same for Gandalf.”

A beat of silence, and then Bilbo was smiling again, and he was pretty sure a slight flush had risen up on his cheeks, but he couldn’t resist.

“So, you have a dog?”

Thorin’s mouth dropped open for a moment, before snapping shut again.

“I read that article.”

Bilbo definitely did flush then.

“Oh, shit. Sorry. I… umm. I called you grumpy, didn’t I?”

Thorin quirked an eyebrow.

“You did. Although thank you for not calling me _sensitive,_ that would have been a lot worse. As it is, I think my sister will only mock me for years, rather than decades.”

Bilbo’s hand flew in front of his mouth, trying unsuccessfully to stop his laughter.

“You must hate me. I am so sorry.”

Thorin sighed, and slumped back in his chair, waving the apology away.

“Not your fault. Not really.” He smiled then, and Bilbo found himself floundering at the sight. “Maybe next time ask me first, so I can tell you to fuck off.”

“Yes, right. Next time, will definitely ask, only to get shot down.”

The waitresses were clearing away the empty coffee cups and plates with pointed clatter, but Bilbo couldn’t quite bring himself to care. He quirked his head to one side slightly as Thorin continued to stare at him. The silence might have reigned a lot longer had the waitress not grown entirely impatient with them.

“Coffee?” she barked.

Thorin glanced at him, eyebrows raised in a question. Bilbo’s mouth quirked into a smile.

“Two, please.”

She nodded, and stormed away.  They watched her go, bemused, and then Thorin shrugged.

“They’re always like that here.”

Bilbo winced.

“So you really do come in here often?”

The other man nodded. “It is – was – my favourite coffee house. But it is tempting to find another place now that my family have discovered it and there is a six-foot picture of myself on the wall.”

“That’s a shame,” replied Bilbo. “I really love it here. Perhaps you could sit on the other side, and try and forget about the picture, and I could stand guard and try and keep your family out?” He grinned. “It really is the least I could do.”

Thorin stared at him levelly.

“I do warn you, my nephews were sent from hell to test the patience of saints.”

Bilbo leant in, his elbows on the table, and returned the serious look, equally grave.

“My own nephew has his moments. I will endeavour to protect your peace.”

Thorin could feel a blush beginning at the base of his neck, and he rubbed at it, feeling self-conscious. The waitress brought their coffees, providing enough of a distraction to try and will it away.

“So,” began Bilbo, conversationally. “There is a dog?”

He pulled a face. “Yes, it’s my sisters, but it ends up staying at mine every time she goes away, and it has become unpleasantly attached to sleeping on my feet.”

Bilbo bit his lip, trying very hard not to comment about how adorable that mental image was.

“What kind it is?”

He had not anticipated the blush that spread suddenly across the bridge of Thorin’s nose. It was unprecedentedly attractive, and Bilbo had to physically stop himself from reaching out and stroking a thumb along the line of his cheekbone.

“A pug.”

Bilbo’s eyes widened.

“No?”

Thorin nodded solemnly.

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re winding me up.”

Thorin’s eyebrows raised, and he reached for his phone, scrolling through the few pictures – most of them taken by his nephews – until he came to one from a the Christmas just passed. Thorin was sat on a sofa, the drooling dog parked firmly across one leg, Kili’s sleeping head resting on the other, his mouth wide open. Thorin had a paper hat on and looked entirely unimpressed with the whole thing, and he hesitated for a moment before passing the phone over.

Bilbo stared at it for a moment.

His mouth opened, then closed again.

He thought the blush had been something, and right now it was only getting brighter. But this, _this_ was something else.

“I should have put this in the exhibition, instead.”

Thorin’s dark look was tempered somewhat by the blush and the tug of a smile as he took his phone back. Bilbo felt a sudden and unexpected tug of affection towards the man, a rare warmth as Thorin leant a little closer over the table.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then the clock rang the hour.

Thorin frowned, and glanced at his watch.

“Damn. I need to get back to work.”

Bilbo leant back in his chair, surprisingly disappointed.

“What do you do?”

“I’m an architect.”

“ _Really?_ How interesting, I love…” he trailed off, waving sheepishly. “I mean, I know taking pictures of buildings is hardly the same thing, but-”

“No,” interrupted Thorin. “It doesn’t really matter, it’s all about really _seeing_ a building.”

He felt a little embarrassed then: normally people were a little put off by the passion he felt for his job, but Bilbo was smiling shyly across at him, as if he completely understood. They stared at each other for a few moments longer, in a gentle silence, before Thorin remembered that he was supposed to be going.

Bilbo stood to leave as he did, insisting on paying.

“Seriously,” he said when Thorin tried to protest, and nodded towards the portrait. To Thorin’s surprise, he had actually forgotten all about it. He let Bilbo pay, for all that it irked him to do it, and followed the other out of the door.

They stood on the pavement, a little unsure of what to do next. Bilbo rubbed the curls at the base of his neck, glancing between the pavement and Thorin.

“I don’t think I will stop going there,” Thorin said abruptly. “I can get used to it.”

Bilbo smiled up at him, and took half a step closer.

“I’m glad, I would hate to think that I’d scared you off the place. And if you really want, I was serious about protecting you from your nephews.”

“They’d eat you alive.”

“Ah, but I could blackmail at least one of them with that picture I’ve seen.”

Thorin laughed, almost surprising himself with the sound.

He hadn’t quite realised in the café that there was such a height difference between himself and Bilbo. Now they were standing he realised that the other man barely came up to his chin. If they embraced, he found himself thinking absently, he would be able to rest his chin on Bilbo’s head easily.

“Maybe…” he trailed off, suddenly uncertain, but then Bilbo’s eyes met his, mouth quirked in a questioning lilt, and he was leaning ever so slightly against his arm, just close enough to, perhaps, mean something.

“Would you like to do…” he trailed off, before waving vaguely at the _Kaffeehaus_ door again. “This, again, sometime?”

Bilbo’s smile was sudden and reassuring.

“I really would.”

 

\--

 

Dwalin and Balin were waiting outside his office when he got back. The only part that surprised him about that was that Dis wasn’t there, too.

He glared at them.

Dwalin grinned back, then hit him in the arm.

“Wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

“Shut up.”

His grin, if possible, grew even wider.

“That was weak. It must be love.”

Thorin did punch him then, and it served him right.

Balin seemed perfectly happy to watch the two of them over his glasses.

“Did you get his number?”

Thorin levelled his glare at him, now that Dwalin had been subdued. Balin, well used to the both of them, ignored the glare and his brother’s laughter, and continued to stare at his friend until Thorin's shoulders slumped.

“Fine, yes, I’ve got his number.”


	2. Chapter 2

It took Thorin three days to call.

Dwalin and Balin could be heard remarking loudly from outside his open door on the matter, deliberating whether or not Thorin had always been such a coward of if they had simply never noticed before. He threw several things at them, but it never quite seemed to get the point across, and Dis was rather angry when he broke the lamp she had bought him trying to nail Dwalin on the head.

It had been an ugly lamp, anyway, that she’d found and restored. Dis was a wonderful woman, but had always had a blind spot when it came to certain deeply unattractive things in need of rescue.

The pug was a prime example.

He stared blankly at the small card Bilbo had handed to him outside Café Stein. It had been crisp and white three days ago, but was now starting to grey at the edges from the number of times he had picked it up then put it back down again.

“Just call him, you stupid bastard!”

“You’re fired.” He shot back through his open doorway, with a let less venom than he might normally have managed. If Dwalin’s laughter was anything to go by, he sounded no less threatening than a new-born kitten.

Dwalin turned conspiratorially from a drawing board to Balin, who was sat behind his desk.

“He’s caving, you can tell. He’ll cry any minute now and give in.”

Dwalin knew his friend better at times than Thorin knew himself: when the two brothers left for lunch, leaving their floor empty, Thorin bit back his nerves and dialled.

He could do this.

He was the wildly successful owner of one of the most prestigious architecture firms in the country. He’d studied at Cambridge, he’d designed skyscrapers and bridges. He dealt with _Kili_ on a daily basis.

It probably wasn’t a good sign that the last one reassured him the most.

The phone rang.

“’Ullo?”

Thorin blinked.

“Um. Hello?”

That was definitely _not_ Bilbo Baggins on the end of the phone. He bit back the sudden rising fear that the photographer had given him a fake number. _Don’t be stupid, Thorin – why would anyone walk around with fake business cards?_ Perhaps to give out to men that propositioned him, his mind replied, spinning wildly out of control. _Don’t be ridiculous._

There was a strange sucking sound coming from the phone now.

“Is this… is this Bilbo’s phone?”

“Yup!”

The voice, now Thorin could take a moment to listen to it properly, was definitely that of a child, and he relaxed slightly. Hadn’t Bilbo mentioned something about a nephew?

“Could you give the phone to Bilbo?”

The young boy on the other end of the phone seemed to consider this for a moment.

“Nope!”

Oh. Um.

Thorin wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. When his nephews had been younger, he would have just threatened them, to which they would have run away from the phone laughing, completely unafraid of their grumpy Uncle Thorin. Actually, not even when they had been younger: he remembered a similar conversation only a few months ago.

But threatening a young boy he didn’t know over the phone might not go down so well.

Instead, he settled back into his chair – which still smelt ever so slightly of pug, incidentally – and prepared to do battle.

“How come?”

The child paused. He clearly had not been expecting that response, and there was the distinct sound of him shuffling his feet.

“Uncle Bilbo’s talking to Mama.”

The lad suddenly sounded shy, as if it had only just occurred to him that he was speaking to a real person. Or perhaps it had just dawned on him how much trouble he would be in if his Mama found out what he was doing. Thorin tried to hide a smile, then remembered he was alone in the office, and let it out.

“So you’re Bilbo’s nephew?”

“Mmhmm. He’s my favourite Uncle, but Mama says I’m not supposed to tell people that.”

Thorin laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

The young boy made a slightly startled noise. “Uh-oh.”

“What is it, lad?”

A slight crackling down the line, as if the boy had shifted the phone slightly, perhaps to hide it better.

“Mama looks _mad._ ”

Thorin managed to suppress his laughter, but it was a close call. From the other end of the line he could hear the voice of a rather harried sounding woman, echoing loudly enough through the speakers to make it clear that she was _not amused._

_“Frodo Baggins, you give me that phone right now, you pest! You know better than to take your Uncle’s things!”_

The sound of a thumb being sucked, and more cracking, as if a young head was being shaken emphatically.

“’M talking to Thorin.”

_“To who? Oh good lord. Bilbo!”_

By the time the phone was wrestled off the young boy and back into Bilbo’s hands, Thorin had given in and was laughing at the accumulated noise of what sounded like a hundred relatives caught between telling the boy off and laughing themselves. It was the kind of bustling family noise that Thorin himself knew far too well, and it surprised him a little – the interview he had read suggested that Bilbo didn’t have a large family.

But then, he corrected himself, friends can become as close as family, and extended relatives might be good for an enjoyable afternoon, but not necessarily for the support network that everyone needs on a day-to-day basis.

“Hello? Thorin?”

Bilbo sounded harried, flustered, and Thorin felt a little guilty.

“Yes, hello. I’m sorry, are you busy?”

“No, no, not at all. I don’t know how Frodo got hold of my phone – sorry about that. I told you my nephew was a handful.”

At least, Thorin reflected, his conversation with Frodo had managed to completely banish his nerves.

“Trust me, he still seems well behaved compared to mine. How are you?”

Bilbo’s laughter was rich and warm, the hairs on the back of Thorin’s neck standing to attention at the sound of it. He rubbed at them half-heartedly.

“I’m good. Glad you called. How are you?”

He couldn’t have stopped the smile that crept across his face if he had tried. _Glad you called._ Ha. He swivelled his chair round to face the window to stop himself from punching the air in victory like some idiot child. Or Kili.

“Ah, yeah? Good. I’m good, I mean. Um.  How old is your nephew? He’s very bright.”

“He is, isn’t he? He’s six, so he’s still got time to catch up to your two in trouble-making. Give him time. I think he’s already giving his mother grey hairs.”

“I know that feeling. I didn’t have any until the boys hit their teens.”

Bilbo’s voice was soft, a little shy, but Thorin could tell he was still smiling down the line.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think they look quite good on you.”

Thorin probably looked like a half-wit by now, but he didn’t care. He didn’t think he’d reacted so strongly to a compliment since he was in his twenties, a thought which sobered him up quickly. _Act like an adult, you idiot_. He put a hand to his face, only to find it uncomfortably warm; _blushing,_ like some mooning teenager, he thought to himself, despairing.

“Well, that’s alright then,” he managed to reply, cursing his own ineloquence as he did so.

There was a noise from the office: Thorin swivelled around in his chair, only to find Dwalin’s beaming face staring at him through the doorway.

“Balin, _look at him._ The moody fucker is _smiling._ ”

Thorin gritted his teeth.

“Fuck off, Dwalin.”

Bilbo’s laugh down the phone was audible, and if possible Dwalin brightened up even more.

“Oh, it is him, then. Well done, you bastard, you managed to call. After only three days of staring at the phone, too. Must be a new record.”

Thorin felt the colour drain from his face as Bilbo continued to laugh, able to hear every word. He cursed under his breath. There was nothing like family for fucking you over and embarrassing you.

“Maybe I should let you go,” Bilbo said brightly down the phone, “Let you get back to work. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.”

Thorin managed to make some kind of noise in response, but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

“But maybe, if you’d like, I could make you dinner this weekend?”

Dwalin was blinking owlishly at him from the doorway, and Thorin realised that he was staring blankly at back at him.

“That… that sounds good. Yes. Dinner. Um. You have my number, so let me know. When, where, if you want me to bring something.”

Bilbo was laughing again, a muted, pleasant laugh that made something in his stomach flip. At least he was amusing, Thorin thought glumly. Even if he couldn’t string a sentence together.

“Lovely. I’ll call you later, then. Bye.”

“Bye,” Thorin muttered, before hanging up and levelling his patented glare at Dwalin, who still didn’t seem to give a shit.

“You’re dead, Fundinson.”

Balin was beaming from his desk, and Dwalin just crossed his arms.

“Got you a date, didn’t it?”

Thorin didn’t reply to that, because yes, it had.

 

\--

 

Bilbo was nervous.

He paced his kitchen, his cat winding its way around his legs, his wide, yellow-blue eyes staring up at him beseechingly. He could smell the chicken roasting, no doubt, and was wondering where his share was. Bilbo had been very adamant, when Gandalf had dropped the rescue cat off at his door six years ago – without any warning, in Gandalf’s typical way – that he was not going to be the kind of cat-owner that fed his pet scraps from the table, but that had gone right out of the window as soon as it had stared up at him with those impossibly pitiful eyes.

Now the cat got whatever it wanted, even if it did sometimes look at him disapprovingly when he cooked fish, rather than eating it raw.

The doorbell rang, and the cat hissed, darting away to the cupboard it had claimed as his own the first time he had stalked around the apartment.

Bilbo ran his hands through his hair, trying to tame his curls into something approaching neat: a lost cause after an afternoon of playing nervously with them as he prepared dinner.

His date was here.

Good lord, his date. He had rather thought this stage of his life was over, having hit thirty-five quite contentedly alone, yet one coffee with the irritable architect he had accidentally photographed had been enough to set his blood racing like he was fifteen again. The moment he had stepped through Prim’s door the weekend before, for the annual family gathering that was always held sometime after Christmas, she had looked him up and down, and _smirked._

“Who is he?”

He had faltered, hanging up his coat with one hand whilst scooping up his giggling nephew with the other.

“What?”

She folded her arms.

“ _Look_ at you. You’ve met someone.”

He was pretty sure he had opened and closed his mouth like a particularly mentally incapable fish in the wake of her astute stare.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

She had raised an eyebrow, and he had known he was sunk. After a couple of glasses of wine he had been forced to admit that okay, perhaps he had met someone, though he had no idea whether it was going to go anywhere or if he would even call. His various female relatives had cooed when he admitted it was the ‘mystery coffee shop man’, as Prim had dubbed the subject of the now unfortunately infamous photograph. His male relatives had shaken their heads as their wives and sisters all began clucking about the _romance_ of the whole thing, no doubt despairing at the ensuing romantic gestures that they themselves would have to think up to satisfy them in the wake of this (as one slightly tipsy aunt had dubbed it) modern day fairy tale.

Then Thorin had called, and had spent some time talking to Frodo, who had somehow managed to sneak his phone from Bilbo’s coat, and any hopes of the conversation being forgotten by his relatives went out the window. The really quite adorable – if short – conversation that had followed had apparently left Bilbo a little flushed and grinning, leaving his relatives nudging each other. The real nail in the coffin had been when Drogo had scooped up Frodo, smirking at Bilbo over the young boy’s shoulder, and asked his son what Thorin was like: Frodo had blushed, buried his head in his father’s neck, and muttered that his Uncle’s new friend was _lovely._

He’d left early, for the first time ever, just to escape the teasing.

But Thorin really _was_ lovely, a fact which was only further proved when Bilbo opened the door to find him standing there looking unfairly attractive, wrapped in a long navy blue coat with a fur collar, the kind of coat that no one should have actually been able to pull off but that he somehow _did._

His smile was slightly crooked, there was a slight dusting of snow across his shoulders, and he handed Bilbo a bottle of wine looking just as self-conscious and embarrassed as Bilbo himself felt.

“Hello.”

Bilbo couldn’t help it: he _beamed._

“Hi.”

They stood awkwardly on either side of the doorway for a moment before Bilbo remembered that he should probably let Thorin in. Barely able to stop himself, he reached up and brushed the snow off Thorin’s shoulders – and oh dear, they really were quite lovely shoulders, weren’t they? Thorin _loomed_ slightly in the narrow hallway, and Bilbo was sure that there was already a flush beginning at the base of his throat, so he took his coat before ushering him as quickly as possible into the living room, where their height difference might be a bit less obvious and Bilbo might be able to control the sudden urge to _touch_ the poor man.

He backed off as much as he could, and smiled.

“Wine?”

Thorin nodded gratefully, and followed Bilbo into the kitchen.

He told himself off as he noticed that his hand was shaking slightly as he poured the wine. Honestly, what on earth was he worrying about? He was a grown man, approaching middle age: the presence of another, attractive man should not be enough to set him off like that.

Then Thorin _smiled_ , a proper, honest smile.

Well fuck.

“It all smells really good.” Bilbo had a sip of wine to avoid what might have just been a squeak, rather than actual words. Thorin smiled at him again. “I would offer to reciprocate some time, but my sister says I’m not allowed to cook.”

Bilbo quirked an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

He found his eye drawn to Thorin’s mouth, where he briefly worried his lower lip between his teeth as he exhaled a silent chuckle.

“Mmm. Apparently not. What are we having?”

Bilbo gestured half-heartedly at the oven.

“Ah, just roast chicken. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I thought I’d play it safe.”

What had been brewing into an ensuing awkward silence was cut off before it had even begun by possibly the most disconcerting sound Thorin had ever heard. Not quite a cough, not quite a growl, and distinctly inhuman. Bilbo’s eyes widened at the sound, and he covered his eyes with a hand, his thumb and middle finger massaging at his temples for a moment.

“Um. That’s my cat.”

Thorin stared at him.

“What the hell kind of cat makes a noise like that?”

He had forgotten his promise to himself to be nice, but luckily Bilbo seemed too distracted to take offense. The smaller man swung open the door to a cupboard, revealing, instead of lines of food or cooking equipment, some rather battered cushions. A pair of luminous, unnerving eyes stared out of the shadows at Thorin, before the cat hissed and slunk out, glaring up at the intruder.

“His name is Smeagol,” said Bilbo, sounding a little unhappy. “Gandalf just dropped him off one day and I never had the heart to give him away.”

The cat hissed at Thorin before stalking away.

“He seems… lovely.”

“He’s a hellion,” replied Bilbo flatly. “He hates _everyone._ ”

They stared at each other a moment before Thorin, in an equally serious voice, replied.

“It’s still better than a pug.”

Then the two of them were laughing, the awkwardness broken in a sudden flurry of good humour, setting the tone for the rest of the evening. The conversation flowed without break, except for the odd occasion when Bilbo had to look at his hands, or his plate, to stop himself from getting overwhelmed and embarrassed by Thorin’s company. He would have felt more awkward about it, but it seemed that his guest had to look away equally often, though always with a slight smile hovering around his mouth, the corners of his eyes crinkled and warm.

Thorin was complimentary of the food without going overboard, as several guests in the past had done, leaving Bilbo feeling embarrassed. They sat around the small table in Bilbo’s cozy kitchen, rather than in the more formal dining room, the atmosphere relaxed, more suited to a pair that had known each other years, rather than a scant week.

Dessert was a simple dish of baked cinnamon apples and vanilla cream, and Bilbo couldn’t help but dwell on the small smudge of cream near Thorin’s mouth, wondering if it would be entirely inappropriate to wipe it away with his thumb.

_Yes,_ said a voice in his mind that sounded remarkably like Prim. _But do it anyway._

He managed to keep his hands to himself, though it was a hard task.

Their conversation rolled easily from work to hobbies and from family to books, covering a myriad in between. He was really starting to regret changing that photograph to black and white, and resolved himself to finding the original and cropping it down to the original size. He found himself aching to see if Thorin’s eyes looked as blue in it as they did here, in his kitchen. It seemed odd that he had spent so much time in recent weeks discussing the man without actually knowing who he was: any time one of his guesses proved to be true it stoked the growing warmth in his chest, and every surprise, or unanticipated quirk in character, made him smile. He found himself rather glad that he hadn’t guessed even a fraction of the man.

It made the whole thing seem more real somehow, as if it wasn’t actually a pleasant day dream.

But eventually the evening drew to a close, the dark outside well and truly settled in, and Thorin glanced regretfully at his watch as Bilbo stifled a yawn. As Bilbo followed him to the door he caught sight of the snow outside, coming down again: it was only a light flurry, but he still had to bite back the sudden impulse to ask Thorin to stay. Far too early for that sort of thing, he lectured himself as his eyes followed the line of Thorin’s shoulders as he shrugged on his coat again.

For some reason he didn’t doubt that they would see each other again.

They smiled at each other as Thorin reached for the door.

“Thank you, for dinner.”

Bilbo bit his lip, smiling.

“You’re welcome. Thanks, for coming. And for trusting me to not take your picture in secret again.”

Thorin’s grin was blinding.

And then the door was open, and they were still smiling silently at each other. Thorin seemed to hesitate for a moment before shaking his head slightly, almost imperceptibly, and turning to leave. He had taken a couple of steps away before Bilbo gave in entirely.

“Thorin,” he began, ignoring the cold wooden floors of the interior hallway under his bare feet.

He wasn’t sure entirely what he had been going to say, because then Thorin had turned, and they were face to face, and Bilbo found himself raising up on the balls of his feet, one hand on Thorin’s chest to steady himself, and kissing him.

It seemed to take Thorin a moment to process exactly what had happened, but then an arm was wrapping around Bilbo’s back, pulling him closer, another cradling the back of his head to tilt it gently, fingers tangling in the messy curls. Bilbo’s hands slid under his open coat, one fisting in the starched cotton of Thorin’s shirt just above his hip, the other still on his chest. Thorin was improbably warm despite the chill January weather, pressing the smaller man against him, his thumb stroking gently against the curve of Bilbo’s neck.

His hold tightened slightly as Bilbo let out a contented hum, drawing their bodies flush together, gently worrying Bilbo’s bottom lip between his teeth until he gasped, pushing against the solid bulk of the taller man as Thorin deepened their kiss, pressing his way into Bilbo’s mouth in a glorious rush of heat that Bilbo found himself relishing, almost wishing that there was more space between him so he could move even _closer_.

His hand slipped up from Thorin’s chest to curve around his neck, raising himself up slightly higher on his feet as he did so, sliding up that wonderfully warm chest. Thorin found himself choking back a groan at the feeling as Bilbo shirt pulled upwards slightly, and he moved his arm downwards just a little, to brush his fingers lightly across the small line of exposed skin.

They pulled apart gradually, though neither of them moved away. Bilbo pressed his forehead against the fur collar of Thorin’s coat, the hard line of his collarbone just distinguishable through the fabric.

“Oh, you lovely man,” breathed Bilbo, not quite meaning for it to be out loud. Thorin’s answer was a deep rumble of a chuckle that Bilbo could _feel_ through his chest, still pressed against it as he was.

They stood like that for a moment, wrapped around each other in the hallway. Thorin was smiling as he drew away, pressing a quick kiss to Bilbo’s hair that made his heart flutter in a way that was quite ridiculous for a thirty-five year old, though he couldn’t seem to mind too much at the moment. He ran the pad of his thumb across the curve of Bilbo’s cheek, the lingering warmth of his embrace keeping away the chill.

“I’ll see you soon?”

It was a question, and an earnest one, and Bilbo nodded in agreement as they drew regretfully apart, staring at each other a moment longer before Thorin took the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder as he went.

“Bye.”

“Bye,” he replied, moving back into his apartment, and if Bilbo sounded a little breathless, then there was no one else around to hear him, and he found that he didn’t quite mind.

He shut the door behind him, pressing a hand to his chest.

Smeagol hissed at him from the doorway of the living room, and he grinned.

“Oh, shut up.”

 

\--

 

Thorin blinked at the light in his front window that he definitely had not left on, before rolling his eyes.

Honestly, did his family have no respect for privacy anymore?

To his surprise, though, it was neither Dwalin nor Dis waiting up for him, but his nephews, who were slumped on his sofa in the living room. It was well past midnight, and Kili appeared to have fallen asleep, drooling slightly on the arm of Thorin’s sofa, his legs thrown over his brother, who was yawning even as his Uncle walked in.

“You know, that key was for emergencies.”

Fili grinned.

“Your love life is an emergency, Uncle.”

Thorin threw his keys onto the side table, in too much of a good mood to let his nephew’s teasing get to him. The feeling of Bilbo pressed against him was still with him, a lingering warmth that the trip home had not managed to shake. Fili smirked.

“We wanted to see what time you got home. Didn’t know how _late_ you’d be.”

The implication was clear, and Thorin glared at his nephew.

“It was a _first date,_ brat.”

Fili waggled his eyebrows, but the effect was rather ruined by the yawn that cracked across his face before he was finished, leaving him looking a little deranged. Thorin rolled his eyes, despairing (and not for the first time) at his nephew’s immaturity.

“The spare room is made up.”

It was an unnecessary statement: the spare room was always made up, because his nephew’s never bothered to warn him when they would appear, but the unspoken offer made it clear to them that they were welcome, even if they had let themselves in and – by the looks of the empty containers littering his coffee table – raided his fridge.

Fili nodded, and yawned again.

“Seriously though, did you have a good time?”

A smile played across Thorin’s features, and Fili stared at the sight wordlessly. Why did Kili have to be asleep for this? Watching his Uncle act like a human being was a _priceless_ experience _._

“That good, huh?”

Thorin scooped up a cushion from the armchair and threw it at him. Fili didn’t bother trying to duck, letting it hit the side of his face with a grin. He swatted at Kili, who stirred, blinking up at them both.

“Urgh.”

“Nice to see you too, Kili.”

His younger nephew rubbed his eyes, not bothering to cover his wide yawn.

“Hey, Uncle. Back so soon?”

Even half-asleep, Kili managed to laden the question with innuendo, and Thorin gave in.

“Yes, I’m back. Yes, I had a good time. Yes, I’m going to call him again. No, I’m not telling any of you a thing, and you can tell your mother to leave me alone. Go to bed.”

Fili laughed, pushing his way to his feet past Kili’s legs, only to turn to tug his brother to standing after him.

“We’ll pass the message on. C’mon, Kee.”

Thorin watched the two of them drag their feet towards the spare room that might as well have been theirs, the number of times they had ended up sleeping in there over the years, and shook his head.

Kili popped his head back around the doorway, smiling in a sleepy, soft way that made him look so much younger than he actually was.

“I like him, Uncle. I’ve not seen you smile this much in _years_.”

Thorin stared after his nephew, lost for words.

It really _had_ been a good night, though. Dinner had been lovely and homey, Bilbo’s apartment cosy and lived-in. He hadn’t really wanted to leave, but there was something about Bilbo that made him want to _wait,_ made him want to take his time and really get to know him, a feeling that Thorin had never really had in any other relationship. He had made himself leave even as he had hesitated, wondering whether or not to lean in for a kiss – one thing he had not wanted to do was scare Bilbo off by coming on too strong.

Though god, he had _wanted_ to kiss him.

The whole evening, in fact, had been a concentrated effort not to reach out and pull the younger man over to him, in a kiss or embrace or just to run a hand along his arm. He had found himself tracking every twist of his mouth, every movement of his hands, without entirely meaning to. The warm light of the kitchen had highlighted the soft, toffee-browns of his slightly wayward curls, and once again he found himself wondering what it would be like to rest his chin on them, press his nose in them.

He had to look away every time a thought like that had occurred to him, in case he ended up staring like a witless idiot.

And then Bilbo had followed him out of the door, and kissed him, and it had been so warm, so _tender._ Bilbo’s body fit against his perfectly, as if some unknown sculptor had carved the pair of them out of a single piece of rock, meant to fit back together. It had been a little like the first time he had held both his nephews, cradling their small heads in the curve of his arms, knowing that _this_ was what they had been created to hold: not bank cards or blueprints, not his laptop or his work phone. His _boys._

Fili’s voice cut through is slightly dazed recollection.

“Uncle, are you going to bed, or what?”

Thorin started, realising he was hovering in the living room, coat still on.

He rubbed a hand through his hair, and wondered if it was too soon to text him.

 

\--

 

_00:45     19/01/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
Thank you, again, for a wonderful evening.

**00:48     19/01/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
You are more than welcome, again. Though my cat may never forgive me. He really doesn’t like strangers.

_00:52     19/01/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
I apologise for disrupting your feline relations. If it makes him any better, I was ambushed by nosy nephews on arriving home.

**00:53     19/01/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
He seems placated by this. And oh dear. After classified information? Did they resort to torture?

_00:58     19/01/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
Puppy-eyes and innuendos only. Apparently I look unusually happy. They blamed you.

**01:02     19/01/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
Go to sleep, you flatterer. I’ll speak to you soon. 

_01:05     19/01/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
Will do. Sleep well.

**01:06     19/01/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
Sleep tight, lovely man.

 

\--

 

When coffee came with both cake _and_ a plate of _Schnitzelsemmeln_ , Bilbo knew there was something up.

He slid in to his seat, watching Gandalf warily from over the newspaper that the older man had snagged from the extensive collection that the café always offered, balanced neatly on a fine, dark-wood holder.

Gandalf just took a sip of his coffee, finishing the pager and placing it to one side with a flourish. Bilbo couldn’t help but notice that the paper was one of the many non-English ones stocked at the shop, and wondered idly when Gandalf had learnt German.

“It’s good to see you, dear boy. I trust you’re well.”

Bilbo nodded, pulling one of the plates over to him. Never look a free meal in the mouth, his mother had taught him, and it was a lesson that had stuck.

“Excellent. And how are you enjoying spending time with Mr Durin?”

Bilbo glared at him.

“I don’t want to know how you know about that. But it is fine, thank you.”

Gandalf quirked an eyebrow, and to his displeasure Bilbo felt his face heating up.

“Just fine?”

He distracted himself with his coffee, not deigning to answer. It was a lot better than ‘fine’, but he wasn’t going to give Gandalf the satisfaction of knowing that.

They smiled at each other in stalemate for a moment longer, Gandalf’s grin charming, Bilbo’s barbed. From behind the counter came the barked German of the owner; the tall, older gentleman shook his head at one of his waitresses as he finished off the delicate piping on a cake with hands that looked far too large and strong to manage such a refined task. Bilbo found himself distracted watching, knowing that he would never have been able to imitate it with anywhere near as much grace.

It would make a good image, he thought idly: the tall, strong older man and his tiny piping bag, or tracing fine patterns on the foam of coffees. He wondered about taking a portrait of him – it wouldn’t even have to be a staged one. The lighting in here was good enough that he could take it without setting up any of the elaborate lights and flash umbrellas he had had to use on other portrait shots.

Hmm. It was worth considering. Perhaps a small series of photographs revolving around the Café? He’d quite like to take one of Gandalf, actually, perched in a chair with his legs crossed, one ankle resting elegantly on the other knee, reclining backwards with a cup of coffee.

All in black-and-white, perhaps, to match the one of Thorin.

He found his eyes drawn to the portrait, at the face that had been occupying so many of his thoughts recently. Their second and third date had gone as well as the first, and only last night he’d walked Bilbo home from the small Spanish restaurant they had gone to for dinner, the two of them holding hands as if they were teenagers rather than respectable professionals.

Thorin had kissed him goodbye again, and once more Bilbo had resisted the urge to ask him up to stay.

Gandalf raised an eyebrow knowingly at him, following the line of gaze to the portrait, and Bilbo looked away quickly, trying to pretend he hadn’t just been daydreaming about the attractive architect.

“Anyway, I have some wonderful news,” Gandalf was twinkling in that way that made Bilbo suspect he wasn’t going to be happy with whatever he had to say next.

“It’s to do with one of your photographs.”

Bilbo frowned.

“Which one?”

He was right. He didn’t like it.

 

\--

 

Several weeks and dates after his first with Bilbo, Thorin came to realise that if he didn’t love his family quite as much as he did, he would probably murder them. The late January snow had melted away to slush by the start of February, only for it to reappear with a concentrated effort around Valentine’s Day, an annual occurrence that Thorin had never particularly enjoyed or celebrated.

Even so, this Valentine’s day was better than most, having started off as pleasantly as all his mornings had recently – with a good-morning text from Bilbo, who seemed to start the days as early as he did, although that was normally to go somewhere to ‘catch the light’, whatever that meant.

The photographer had been away for the last week, up in the Scottish highlands, working on a job. He wandered out of signal range for most of the day, but always seemed to find the time to send a text to Thorin in the morning. Though he’d barely known Bilbo a month, he’d quickly grown accustomed to speaking to or seeing him almost every couple of days, be it for the evening, or just for a quick coffee over lunch, or an evening phone call. Each meeting or conversation taught him a little more about Bilbo, convincing him more and more each passing day just how compatible the two of them were. The last week had been surprisingly difficult, not having that. He had found himself staring up at the still-disconcerting portrait of himself in Café Stein, feeling almost _lonely._

At least work hadn’t been the nightmare it could have: they were in the down-cycle between two projects at the moment, running over last minute details and corrections on one whilst sketching up rough plans for the second, and so work was pleasantly quiet. Dwalin spent most of his time out on site as it was, and running between the two kept him out of Thorin’s hair for most of the day, leaving just himself, Balin, and the current useless intern in the office. He had a meeting with their on-site manager in an hour or so, but otherwise all he really had to do was tinker with equations and field panicked phone calls from their clients, before packing up for a well-deserved weekend.

Then his secretary had buzzed.

 “Ah, Mr Durin?”

The usually collected young man sounded positively frazzled, which should have been enough to warn him that something bad was about to happen.

“Yes?”

“Family to see you, sir. They’re on their way up.”

Thorin blanched as his secretary hung up the phone. His secretary didn’t bother warning him about Dis, Fili or Kili anymore: the three of them wandered in and out of his offices as they wanted, and most of the time Thorin really didn’t mind.

A warning meant only one thing.

The lift doors pinged open.

“Brother!”

Frerin threw his arms around his older brother’s shoulders, beaming.

“What are you doing here?” Thorin hugged his brother back, briefly, before pulling away with a frown.

Unlike his brother and sister, Frerin had never made it through university: he’d started, at their father’s insistence, but had dropped out after the first year. He’d always been the one most willing to throw caution to the wind and take risks, and their father had almost had a fit when he had called home from a tiny apartment in Paris to inform the family that he’d packed in his course and moved to France to work in a friend’s bar. It had taken almost a year for their father to forgive him, although it had all been forgotten when Frerin’s first screenplay had been adapted by an independent French film studio. All these years later he was still quite happily living without responsibilities, with a number of successful scripts under his belt. He spent most of his time writing in France, his grotty little flat exchanged for a ramshackle country farmhouse he was slowly converting himself: he still made it back home every few months though, to bother his family.

Normally, though, he at least gave some warning.

Frerin grinned, throwing himself down into the nearest chair, stretching as he did so.

“Well, I happened to hear something quite interesting on the grapevine, and thought I’d come and see for myself.” He leant forward, raising his eyebrows conspiratorially at Thorin. “Apparently, you’re _smitten._ ”

Thorin wasn’t entirely sure, but it looked like Balin was trying to sneak out of the room.

He gritted his teeth.

“Careful, brother, or you’ll need dentures by the time you’re forty. And that’s not that far away.” Frerin was still beaming. “C’mon, tell me _everything._ ”

“No doubt you’ve already been told every detail of my private life already, so you’ll forgive me if I have no desire to further embarrass myself by repeating what you already know.”

Frerin cocked his head to one side, and Balin was _definitely_ trying to make for the door now.

“Au contraire, I’ve actually heard very little: all I know is that he’s a photographer, that Kili thinks he’s adorable, Dis is taking wagers on when you’ll marry him, and Fili’s planning on interrogating him about his intentions towards you.”

That caught his attention.

“What?”

Frerin nodded.

“Apparently he’s written a paper on his sculptural photography?” He pulled a face. “Honestly, I can’t believe my wonderful baby nephew is turning out as boring as _you,_ Thorin. An architect, as if we don’t have enough of them in the family.”

“Oh, shut up. The day Fili stops being as immature as his brother is the day I sign the firm over to _Kili._ ”

Balin might have laughed at that, but the idea of Kili in charge of anything was too awful to comprehend. Thorin seemed to agree, if the slightly horrified expression he wore at his own words was anything to go by. Frerin waved them both off.

“Anyway, apparently the chap who owns the gallery wants Fili to run the article past your man first, to make sure everything is correct, and he’s decided to take the opportunity to get to know him better. You might want to warn him in advance if you don’t want him scared off.” He winked at Thorin. “I might try and tag along, I’m rather curious myself.”

Thorin closed his eyes momentarily.

Fratricide, there was a long historical precedent for it. What was the equivalent for nephews?

“So tell me,” Frerin leant closer, propping himself up on the corner of a drawing table. “You banged him yet?”

He managed to escape for his meeting early, but by the time he’d returned so had Dwalin. He walked in just in time to hear the end of the story of how Fili and Kili had found the giant photograph of Thorin in the Greyhame, a story that he seemed to love telling anyone he could, at Thorin’s expense.

Frerin swivelled on his – Thorin’s – chair.

“He must be cute, if he _stole_ your image and you’re not mad.”

Dwalin laughed.

“He was pretty furious at first. But then Bilbo just batted his eyelashes and your brother was gone.”

Thorin grumbled. “He did not bat _anything._ He’s not some romance heroine. He’s a respectable, thirty-five year old man.”

“But he _is_ cute?”

“Frerin, you’ve made him blush!”

He made for his office, definitely _not_ running.

“So he’s burgled your heart and your picture?”

“I hate you all.”

He slammed the door to the sound of their laughter.

 

\--

 

They managed to coax him back out within an hour with coffee, though their teasing did not abate in the slightest.

“So how is he in bed?”

Dwalin smacked Frerin around the back of his head.

“Don’t be crude, you bastard.”

Thorin blinked in surprise, only to have Dwalin turn on him instead.

“When are you gonna marry him?”

Balin tutted.

“Leave Thorin alone, it is a beautiful romantic fairy-tale that you are all ruining with your coarse jokes.”

He didn’t sound serious in the slightest, and Dwalin and Frerin only started laughing all the harder. Thorin buried his head in his hands.

“All of you, you’re fired. Get out of my office.”

Frerin ruffled his hair.

“You don’t employ me, brother. You can’t fire me.”

Thorin grumbled.

“I can call the police.”

“Then I’ll call Dis. We’ll see who comes out the worst.”

Damn. A stalemate.

The phone rang, the red light flashing to indicate it was the downstairs desk again.

“Yes?”

“Mr Durin, sir? A Mr Baggins to you, but he doesn’t have an appointment.”

Dwalin was staring at him, so he fought back his initial response, which was to smile. Then to groan, because Frerin was still here, and if the rest of his family hadn’t been enough to scare off Bilbo, then his irresponsible brother certainly would be.

“Let him up.”

He was supposed to be taking Bilbo out for dinner tomorrow, but he wasn’t going to complain about seeing him earlier. He’d eyed the number reading above the door as it gradually rose, and pointed a finger at his brother.

“Not a word.”

Frerin blinked, and then grinned.

“Ohh, is it him?”

The lift door opened before Thorin had a chance to answer. Bilbo looked a little overwhelmed at the beaming smiles Dwalin, Balin and Frerin all turned on him in unison. His mouth opened at the sight of the three of them, before he turned to Thoirn, adjusting his expression to a small, warm smile.

“Hi.”

The corners of Thorin’s eyes crinkled as he tried not to give his family any more satisfaction by showing just how pleased he was to see him. Had they been alone, he might have reached for the smaller man, to rest a hand on his arm or perhaps even to embrace him, but the thought of doing so in front of his family stopped him short. Bilbo took half a step closer, his head tilted slightly to one side, jaw against the soft collar of his bulky camel-coloured coat. 

“I finished up sooner than I thought, so I drove back early. Lunch?”

He nodded, trying to shift slightly to block Bilbo from Frerin’s sight.

“Sounds good, I’m not needed here.”

He tried to usher Bilbo back towards the lift. He couldn’t see him, but he had no doubt that Frerin was wearing his biggest, most troublemaking grin.

“Thorin, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

He hooked his coat off the stand, reaching around Bilbo to call the lift.

“No.”

But Bilbo, it seemed, lacked any and all survival instinct. He ducked out from Thorin’s arm, either not noticing or ignoring Thorin’s expression, which was desperately trying to convey that Bilbo should escape, _now._

“I’m Bilbo,” he took a few steps back towards Frerin, arm outstretched to shake. “Bilbo Baggins. It’s nice to meet you.”

Frerin grinned, and it was uncomfortably reminiscent of his nephews.

“Frerin Durin, unfortunate younger brother of Thorin. How do you know him?”

Bilbo’s mouth opened slightly again as he tried to work out exactly how to answer. Thorin felt his own throat tighten momentarily: he wouldn’t know what to say to that question, either. Boyfriend felt uncomfortably juvenile for two men in the later stages of their thirties, lover awkward and not quite accurate yet. And his family definitely did _not_ need to know that. They had enough ammunition against him as it was.

_Please don’t let him say friend, though_ , he thought to himself.

“Umm… well, I accidentally put a portrait of him up in a gallery exhibition, made wild guesses about his personality and life in magazine interviews, and when we finally met he glared at me for a while and then asked me out.” He turned to Thorin, eyebrows raised questioningly. “I think that about covers it?”

Thorin stared at him for a moment, before choking out a reply.

“Just… just about.”

Frerin was laughing.

“Well, that sounds very promising. Haven’t you got sick of him yet?”

Bilbo’s smile was still present, but he frowned slightly. Prim had immunised him against familial teasing, and it was becoming obvious that Thorin’s family had no compunctions about embarrassing the hell out of him, either, but he didn’t feel quite ready to join in yet.

“Not yet,” he replied, a soft smile playing on his face. Frerin looked at it, and beamed, winking at his brother from across the room.

“That’s unusual. Normally a few hours in his company is enough to turn anyone off for life. You really must be something _special._ Can I take you out for lunch tomorrow? I would _love_ to hear all about how my brother is managing to distract you from his flaws.”

Bilbo blinked, disarmed by the sudden change in tone and the teasing leer that unfolded across Frerin’s face, making the family resemblance between him and his nephews all the clearer. He wasn’t having any of it. He folded his arms, backing back towards the lift as it opened with an audible ping.

“Sorry, I think I’ll be busy.”

He took Thorin’s arm, shot the rest of the room a charming smile, and pulled him into the lift, the door closing behind them. He turned to look up at the taller man, still smiling, though it shifted into something softer, and a little embarrassed.

“Was that rude of me?”

Thorin shook his head, cupping Bilbo’s face with one hand, running his thumb up and down the curve of his jaw.

“Frerin deserves it. He knew exactly who you were. He was just pushing you to see how you’d react.” Bilbo pressed into Thorin’s hand without quite realising what he was doing, and Thorin’s thumb found the plump line of his lower lip.

“I’ve missed you,” he told he shorter man. He hadn’t quite meant to say it out loud, but in the face of Bilbo’s answering smile he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“What time do you have to be back at work?”

It was a Friday, he thought, and Balin could more than handle things for the rest of the afternoon. He smiled down at him, unwilling to move his hand or take a step away to a more appropriate distance.

“I don’t.”

Bilbo tilted his head to one side.

“I don’t want to drag you away from work. Or take up your time if you’re busy.”

He shrugged.

“Call it the perks of being the boss. I can take a Friday afternoon off if I want.”

They pulled apart as the lift doors opened, making their way across the lobby side-by-side. The snow had stopped, but there were still flurries of it in the air, picked up from the shallow drifts covering the ground by the chill breeze. The sky had finally cleared from the silver-slate that had covered the city for the last week, leaving behind a clear, blue sky. The weak winter sunlight picked out the gentle gold in Bilbo’s curls.

“Here, get in.”

Thorin looked in horror at the car that Bilbo was indicating, bumped up on the pavement outside his office.

“You’re joking.”

Bilbo glared at him.

“What?”

“That is _barely_ a car.”

Bilbo ignored him, moving around to the other side to get in the driver’s seat. Thorin eyed the car warily: it barely looked like it would hold his weight, let alone actually run. But Bilbo just turned the ignition, staring out the passenger window at him challengingly. He hesitated for a moment longer before Bilbo revved the engine threateningly and he gave in, sliding gingerly in.

Bilbo was smiling warmly as he pulled away from the kerb.

“Why do you have this old thing, then?”

Bilbo patted the dashboard affectionately.

“This _thing_ is a ’65 Consul Corsair, and it was my father’s. When he wasn’t sculpting, my Dad spent most of his spare time in his garage. This was his baby.”

Thorin felt a little bad, then, but couldn’t help point out the way his head grazed against the roof, the static pulling his hair on end. Bilbo only laughed at him as the car pulled out of the city, avoiding the traffic and heading up into the hilly moorland to the north. He stared out the window, hands firmly in his lap, trying very hard not to reach over and touch Bilbo: he didn’t trust the car as it was, let alone if it had a distracted driver.

“Where are we going?”

Bilbo hummed under his breath, switching on the tape player – and honest to god _tape player_ – and shooting an amused glance at Thorin.

“For a picnic.”

“Bilbo, it’s the middle of February, it’s been snowing all week, and we’re going up into the moors for a picnic?”

“Oh, live a little.”

The music started, quiet, rolling melodies that gradually built around the gentle voices of the male singers. Some of the songs were vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place them, the soft guitar and piano riffs somehow fitting in with the landscape as they pulled away from the outskirts, the suburban houses gradually fading away into the outlaying stone-built towns that had once stood separate, before the city had sprawled. And then they were through those into the moorland proper, small villages passing by outside, the long stretches of brown heather, black peat and grey-white snow reaching out on either side of the narrow road. Bilbo was humming quietly along, singing soft lines of the lyrics here and there.

It felt incomprehensibly peaceful, the countryside rolling by, the music a relaxing background noise. After a while Bilbo reached over and linked their fingers, resting their hands on Thorin’s thigh, only occasionally letting go to change gear.

They pulled off the main road after a while, down a much narrower, single-car road, and then again onto something that could only reasonably be called a _track._ The snow hadn’t fallen particularly heavily and the roads had all been gritted, but Thorin was beginning to worry about the reliability of the car by the time Bilbo eventually pulled over in a layby, leaving the engine running. He turned up the music, slid out of the car, and went to retrieve something from the boot.

Thorin followed, taking a deep breath of the crisp, clean air as he wrapped his coat more firmly around himself. It was noticeably colder now, away from the closed in city streets and at the higher altitude, but the view really was breath-taking.

The hills stretched away in front of them, rolling out towards the horizon in shades of grey, brown and muted purples, showing through in patches from underneath the snow. The occasional just of rock or curving stream broke the slopes up, the city a haze in the distance.

“Like it?”

Thorin turned, and couldn’t help but shake his head at the sight in front of him.

Bilbo had pulled two large cushions out of the boot, the solid kind that made up the base of a sofa, and placed them side by side against a nearby rock on top of a mat. Bilbo had already sat down, a blanket wrapped around his shoulder and a large bag by his side: as Thorin stared he held out his arm and one side of the blanket, tilting his head invitingly.

“You’re ridiculous.”

But he sat down all the same, though the blanket wasn’t quite big enough to cover them both properly: instead he wrapped an arm around Bilbo, shifting him on to his lap, burying his nose in the curve of his neck. The gesture might perhaps have been a little too comfortable for a pair who had only known each other a month or so, and Bilbo huffed a little, but he made no attempt to move or push Thorin away. Instead, he grabbed the second blanket, wrapping it over the front of them, pressing his own back against Thorin’s front.

“There were more blankets, you know.”

Thorin smiled against Bilbo’s skin.

“This is nicer.”

There was a hum of agreement, and Bilbo shifted, reaching over to hook the bag he’d brought. Thorin propped his chin up on the curve of his shoulder, only a little put out that he couldn’t properly feel Bilbo through the bulk of their coats, and watched him as he pulled a large thermos and a pair of mugs out.

“You know, we could have done this in the summer.”

Bilbo nodded, and poured out two steaming servings of what looked like very dark, rich hot chocolate.

“You have no sense of adventure, Thorin.”

It was a little awkward, trying to drink without dislodging the blankets, and in the end Bilbo slid to the side, so his legs were still thrown over Thorin’s lap but his body curled into his side instead, sat on the cushions rather than Thorin’s legs. Thorin might have complained, but he could still nose at Bilbo’s hair, which left him content enough.

It felt nice, unspeakably comfortable, and Dis would have had a field day if she’s have seen it. Luckily they were far away from any prying eyes or interfering relatives, so Thorin kept one arm still wrapped firmly around the smaller man.

Little pastry packages filled with creamed leeks and herby roast chicken soon appeared, and picante peppers stuffed with goats cheese and basil. Thorin shook his head as Bilbo held out first one, then the other plastic container to him, followed by a third filled with pulled pork, spiced cabbage, and apple sauce wraps.

“How did you have time to make all this?”

Bilbo smiled. “I stopped off before I got home to get the ingredients. It didn’t take long.”

However long it had taken, it tasted amazing. Thorin shook his head as a thought occurred to him.

“What would you have done if I had been too busy?”

Bilbo shrugged.

“If you didn’t have long, I thought we could just eat it in the park next to Stein. If you really couldn’t have made it, I would have just sulked and eaten it all myself, whilst berating myself for not actually asking you first.”

He leant over, pressing a quick, light kiss to Thorin’s cheek.

“I’m glad you were free, though.”

Thorin pulled him a little tighter.

“I am, too.”

Squares of parkin appeared next, heavy and sticky and tasting like Thorin’s childhood: Bilbo fed him one, letting Thorin pull his fingers passed his lips, barely containing a shudder as he grazed his fingertips with his teeth.

“You’re spoiling me.”

There was a light blush making its way up Bilbo’s throat: Thorin eyed it with appreciation as Bilbo replied.

“Well, someone has to. And a proper Baggins should always take care of their guests.” He stuck his nose up in the air, and Thorin got the impression he was quoting a family member.

He poked Bilbo’s side.

“In case you’d forgotten, we’re up in the moors, not in your house.”

Bilbo pondered this for a moment, before snuggling a little closer.

“You’re sat on my cushions, that’s close enough.”

Thorin chuckled as he wrapped the blankets more securely around them, shifting as close to the other man as he could without literally being on top of him.

“Fair enough.”

Bilbo’s hand snuck up, pulling gently at his ear in retribution for his teasing tone.

“Happy Valentines, by the way.”

Thorin groaned.

“Don’t say that. It makes me feel bad that I haven’t done anything.”

Bilbo shrugged. “It wasn’t for Valentine’s Day. I actually didn’t remember until we were driving up here.” His voice was quite earnest, and Thorin didn’t doubt his honesty. “I’ve never actually done the whole Valentines thing before, you know.”

Thorin nodded. “Neither have I, not willingly anyway. But this-” and with one hand he gestured around them, the other squeezing Bilbo, running his nose briefly through his hair again. “This, kind of thing is nice. It doesn’t feel… difficult.”

Bilbo smiled against the fur of Thorin’s coat collar, warm underneath the blankets. A few flakes of snow had been blown up by the breeze, and he reached up to brush one off Thorin’s hair, where it had settled.

“I do.”

They remained like that a while longer, until Bilbo shifted against him a little.

“I’ve got some bad news, actually.”

Thorin stiffened, resisting the urge to pull Bilbo back onto his lap, and hide him from the world, which would have been a rather overdramatic reaction to a simple statement, and never let it be said that Thorin Durin _ever_ overreacted. Instead he kissed the crown of his head, and hummed a questioning noise in response.

“It’s about your portrait.”

Oh shit.

Bilbo shuffled uncomfortably.

“You know Arkerna?”

Thorin did. The Swiss watch company was not perhaps as famous as brands like Cartier or Rolex, but it was still well known – and the watch he himself wore was by them, a gift from his mother that he had received on graduating. They had a slightly old fashioned reputation that they used to their advantage, branding themselves as an elegant, old-world company, specialising in the height of technology coupled with an antique, refined appearance.

“Yes,” he replied hesitantly.

“Well, they saw the portrait in that magazine article,” Bilbo still flushed a little at the thought of it. “And they contacted Gandalf. They want to hire me to shoot as series of adverts based off it, black and white portraits of people wearing their watches in day-to-day places, that kind of thing.”

Thorin frowned, wondering quite where the bad news was in this.

“Congratulations?” he offered uncertainly.

“Well, the thing is, they wanted to include your picture in the campaign, because apparently you’re wearing one of theirs in it?”

Thorin nodded, confirming this. “But Stein bought the picture, didn’t they? Can they still use it?”

Bilbo shook his head.

“Technically, no. Which is why the condition of me getting the ad campaign is that I take at least another one of, well, you.”

Thorin stared at him.

“You can’t be serious. I’m an architect, not a bloody model.”

Bilbo was chewing on his lip. “That’s what I told them. And if you don’t want to, I completely understand. I’ll tell them no.”

Thorin groaned. Bilbo sounded so earnest, so accepting, as if he had already assumed that it wouldn’t be happening and had come to terms with it. If there had been even a hint of emotional blackmail in his tone, Thorin wouldn’t have considered it, but Bilbo was still smiling at him, not a hint of disappointment in his expression.

“Why do they want _me_?”

Bilbo looked up at him in disbelief.

“Are you serious? I mean, _look_ at you.”

Now it was Thorin’s turn to shift uncomfortably. He had never felt particularly unhappy with the way he looked, but the idea of posing for photographs made him want to hide his face under a paper bag.

“And I think their marketing executive might, umm, appreciate the way you look as well.”

Oh god.

“But honestly, don’t worry. I’ll tell them no. I might still get the job anyway, if they can’t find anyone else that they prefer.”

Bilbo shot him a quick grin, reaching up to pull Thorin down into a kiss, humming in satisfaction as Thorin pulled at his lower lip gently with his teeth. The heat of lust uncoiled in his chest as his eyes flickered shut, wanting nothing more than to get lost in the warmth of Thorin’s kiss. He buried his hands in Thorin’s hair, pulling himself up to press his chest against Thorin’s own, swinging a leg over the other man’s lap to settle into it, a knee on either side of him. The blankets pooled around them, and Thorin let go of the other man for just a moment to pull them back around, deepening the kiss as Bilbo rocket gently against him.

He pulled away, gently, resting his forehead against Thorin’s, smiling at him, the corners of his eyes crinkling appealingly. Thorin sighed, and rubbed his nose against Bilbo’s.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

Bilbo’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.

“Really?”

Thorin nodded, resigning himself to humiliation.

“Just… don’t tell Dwalin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, hello. I am completely overwhelmed by how lovely you have all been. *Waves at you all. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr, where there is also a link to the driving playlist from this chapter, where there is also really pretty photo-set thing that my friend made for this fic that made me update this today in gratitude. [http://northerntrash.tumblr.com] Come say hello. :)
> 
> Also, the cat was originally called Boris. It was only when I re-read it that I realised I had accidentally written Gollum. Not sure what that says about my state of mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I said how grateful I am for how lovely you all are, and for how many nice messages I've had on here and on tumblr? No? Let me say it again. Bless you all. 
> 
> Please note the change in rating. :)
> 
> Also, many thanks for all the positive feedback I've had about Colour-struck, which I posted around the same time as the last chapter. I've had some absolutely beautiful fan art drawn for me for it, so I thought I'd pop in the link here as well, as I know a fair few people who read this also bookmarked and commented on that, as well:  
> http://shamingcows.tumblr.com/post/86895716168/im-sorry-it-was-better-in-my-head
> 
> Much love, and as always, come hit me up on tumblr if you want to chat. :)

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this embarrassed.”

Bilbo’s smile was obvious even behind the camera.

“I’ll be certain not to tell your nephews that – I think they’d be devastated to know it wasn’t their doing.”

Thorin smirked, sipping at his wine.

“Although is this really worse than when you saw the first portrait, or when it was put up in Stein?”

He glared at Bilbo. “Is it really in your interest to remind me of that?”

Bilbo put down his camera, his smile warm.

“Probably not, particularly as I was thinking of asking Dis if we could borrow her pug for one of these pictures.”

Thorin’s expression was thunderous.

“Don’t you dare.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. Though the mental image was a precious one, it probably wouldn’t do either of them any good. “I wouldn’t – can you imagine the fall out if they connected it to the interview? You’d never be taken seriously again.”

“I’m pretty sure my reputation will be lost as soon as Dwalin or Dis find out about this.” He paused. “Or Frerin. Or my nephews.” He gestured at Bilbo with his wine glass. “If you tell them, I’m kidnapping your cat in revenge.”

Said cat hissed at him from on top of the kitchen cabinets, as if he knew he was being talked about.

Bilbo snorted. “You can take him. And don’t you think they’re going to see the pictures in the end, anyway?”

Thorin pulled a face. “I’m hoping not. None of them really read fashion magazines, so I’m hoping it will stay under the radar.”

Bilbo hummed in response, lifting his camera back up, not entirely convinced.

They were sat in his kitchen, having just finished dinner. The photos he was taking were not for the campaign, as he had assured Thorin: he was just trying to get him used to being at the other end of the camera. He wanted the series to be as relaxed and natural feeling as possible, and people unused to being photographed had a habit of freezing up when their picture was taken, their poses becoming oddly rigid and their expressions unnatural. Thorin was becoming gradually used to the idea, though Bilbo doubted he was enjoying it – he still sat a little tense as the lens was trained on him.

Bilbo squinted through the viewfinder.

“It’s not that embarrassing, surely? It’s just us here.”

Thorin shifted in his chair, trying not to glance at him out of the corner of his eye, so that he might forget the camera trained between them.

“It makes me very aware that you are looking at me, that’s all. It’s difficult to relax knowing that someone’s attention is focused on you.”

Bilbo glanced at him over the camera, and shook his head slightly.

“I’d have been staring at you anyway, you know.”

Thorin’s mouth opened for a moment before snapping shut again, and Bilbo couldn’t help but take a quick picture of the blush that spread across his face, brilliantly bright even in the dimmed light and flicker of the candles.

It had been a wonderful two months, and Bilbo already couldn’t imagine what he’d been doing with his life before he’d had time with Thorin to fill so many of his evenings and weekend afternoons with. Their relationship had been slow-moving physically, but suddenly quick emotionally: he already felt a comfort around Thorin that spoke of years of companionship, rather than weeks.

The thought made something warm flutter in his chest, and he put the camera down and reached out, careful to avoid the glasses of wine on the table, taking Thorin’s hand in his own.

“Sorry,” he said with a grin.

Thorin gave him a _look._ “No you’re not.”

Bilbo’s grin was brilliant. “You’re right, I’m not.”

He stood, and pulled Thorin to his feet, both of them taking their wine in hand. He pulled him through to the living room, to the much more comfortable sofa, only the gentle hissing of his cat audible over the background music playing. He hummed along with a chorus, shifting the various draft images into a pile on the coffee table.

“At some point we’re going to have to take the actual photos, you know,” he said to Thorin, who was settling himself down on the sofa, sinking into its depths. “I know you don’t want to, but we’d better get it over and done with.”

Thorin groaned.

“Yes, I know.”

“C’mon, at least you get a free watch out of it.”

“I already have a watch,” he grumbled. “I have no need for a second. Nor do I want one – it was my watch that got me into this trouble in the first place.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes, settling himself down beside Thorin, shifting forward a little so that the other man could wrap an arm around his waist, a comfortable action without a hint of self-consciousness anymore. He tucked his feet up on the sofa, resting his head against Thorin’s shoulder.

“Yes, yes,” he replied, patting Thorin’s thigh. “You’re doing it because you’re a lovely man, and I really do appreciate it.”

Thorin huffed against Bilbo’s curls, a place that was rapidly becoming his favourite spot in the world.

“You’re saying that now, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something suitably horrible for you to endure in revenge.”

Bilbo laughed.

“I’m regretting it already.”

Thorin poked his side.

“Stop laughing at me.”

“Can’t help it,” he replied, rolling his head back and pressing a light kiss to the underside of Thorin’s jaw. “It’s just so easy.”

“Bah,” came Thorin’s deep reply as he settled himself even deeper in the sofa, the arm around Bilbo’s middle sneaking under his shirt to stroke his hip. “I hate you.”

Bilbo kissed him again, then once more.

“No you don’t.”

Thorin couldn’t quite bring himself to disagree.

“Any luck in thinking up any more pictures?”

Bilbo groaned.

“Don’t remind me.”

Bilbo was starting to regret taking on the project as more and more conditions were heaped upon it. Some were easy enough to incorporate: that all the images came from public places and normal environments rather than studios or sets was the way that Bilbo preferred to work anyway, and he had no problem with that. That the models were all normal people, rather than professionals, was a proving to be a much harder condition to fulfil. There had been several family members and friends he had considered, but they had all been rejected by Arkena.

Apparently they wanted entirely normal, everyday people, who just happened to be heartbreakingly beautiful at the same time.

“The kind of people you see every day,” one exec had told him, “But the ones that make you stop and gape.”

Of course.

The only good thing had been that they were rather insistent that the models covered a broad range of ages, rather than focusing solely on younger men and women, as ad campaigns usually did – at least, Bilbo had thought as he had taken Gandalf’s picture, they knew their market.

Taking photographs of eighteen year olds wearing their watches was a little counter-productive when no normal young adult would have been able to afford them.

Gandalf had been easily swayed into becoming a model, seeming to find the notion extremely amusing. Bilbo had taken the ones of Gandalf in to the last meeting with Arkerna, and they’d been very happy with them. Luckily the irritating twinkle in his old friend’s eye looked knowing and kindly in the portraits, rather than troublesome, and the two pictures that had been chosen to be added to the final run showed a handsome older man, wearing his age with elegance and confidence.

One had him with his favourite cashmere scarf tossed over one shoulder, smoking one of the thin, pungent roll ups he favoured in his office, staring with a slightly distant smile out the window. The other had been taken in his gallery, jacket of one of his tailored suits cast to the side and his waistcoat unbuttoned, shirt sleeves rolled up as he adjusted the way a picture was hung.

The watch he’d chosen for Gandalf to wear was of course prominent, but didn’t dominate the scene: there was nothing worse, in Bilbo’s opinion, than overly focused product placement.

He still hadn’t decided how to stage Thorin’s pictures yet, though he was fairly certain he wanted one in his office, perhaps stood bent over a drawing board, one hand in his hair and framed by one of the big windows, his broad shoulders emphasised and his forearms on show. Arkena still wanted one in Café Stein, but Bilbo was still after a third, one that he had not quite managed to compose in his mind.

Bilbo found himself a little distracted by the thought, and Thorin reached over, tapping his cheek gently.

“Earth to Bilbo.”

He laughed, flushing a little.

“Sorry. Mind is on the project still.”

The project and Thorin, but he didn’t need to know that.

“So you are struggling to think of ideas?”

Bilbo nodded. He’d confided his concerns to Thorin over coffee the day before, after he’d been unceremoniously turned down by Stein’s owner about being a model. He’d had a wonderful idea for a picture, the broad and attractive man icing delicate cupcakes in a linin apron, shorn silver hair catching the light, but the man had taken one look at Gandalf’s beaming face over Bilbo’s shoulder and shaken his head at the idea.

“What about the list of places they gave you?”

Bilbo frowned, trying to recall them.

Offices and coffee shops, museums. Those were all accounted for, by now, in the ones he had taken or had planned out: though Stein’s owner had been unwilling to participate, he had been more than happy to let Bilbo take another shot of Thorin in his café, presuming – no doubt correctly – that it would only be good for business.

Where else had they mentioned? Parks, homes and restaurants, bookshops and… bars. Huh.

Bilbo grinned.

_Bars._

_Perfect._

 

\--

 

 _13:12     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
I missed your call, what did you want?

 **13:16     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
You’re as eloquent as ever. You remembered that it is your darling sister’s birthday, next week, didn’t you?

 _13:20     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
If I had any chance of forgetting, it went out the window with your series of email reminders and subtle links to gifts you would like. I wouldn’t count on Frerin though, he needs a brick to the face for anything to get through to him.

 **13:22     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
You’re so nice to your siblings.

 _13:25     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
I’m the oldest, it’s my prerogative. 

 **13:29     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
Maybe. But I need you to keep the 16 th free.  

 _13:32     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
If I must. What do you want to do?

 **13:35     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
Nothing excessive, I don’t think my nerves can handle trying to plan anything that the boys might ruin. I was just going to make dinner for the family.

 _13:37     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
It’s your birthday, don’t you want to go out?

 **13:39     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
Nah, you can bring dessert though. And wine. And your new boyfriend.

 _13:41     08/03/2014_  
To: Dis Durin  
Seriously?

 **13:43     08/03/2014**  
From: Dis Durin  
There will be trouble if you don’t.

_\--_

_13:50     08/03/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
I’ve thought of my revenge.

 **13:43     08/03/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
Oh dear. A quest reclaim a lost kingdom? A battle with an army of monsters?

 _13:41     08/03/2014_  
To: Bilbo Baggins  
Of a kind. Dinner with my family. Next Sunday.

 **13:43     08/03/2014**  
From: Bilbo Baggins  
That seems suitably horrific. I’ll be there.

 

\--

Bilbo took a seat at the bar, propping himself up on one hand as he waited for the bartender to finish up. It was a quiet evening, thankfully: he didn’t think propositioning the man would go down very well in front of a large audience.

He sat patiently, fingers running around the edges of a beer mat.

This was his favourite bar by far, comfortable and convenient as it lay half way between the Greyhame and his apartment. It was tucked away down a short flight of stairs from the pavement, the tops of the windows level with the street. It was dark without being dingy, the scarred wooden floors polished to a high shine, the dark blues and greys of the wall somehow not making the place look dismal.

Instead, it had rather a relaxing feel to it, and the scuffed brown-leather booths that ran the length of the bar were regularly full of a motley collection of individuals. Some of the more well-turned out business men and women made it in here, preferring the atmosphere to the smarter, more pretentious bars that littered the area, and the real ale selection attracted the expected crowds of affected young people dressed in tweed and sporting unimpressive facial hair, but the bulk of its clientele were a little off beat, raucous but friendly. 

One such man sat at the other end of the bar, and he caught Bilbo’s glance, tipping his pint at him in a salute and grinning from underneath his rather strange hat.

Bilbo’s eyes shifted to the rest of the bar, already trying to work out where he could take pictures. One wall of the bar had been lined with barrels, all stacked neatly, fitting together. Some were the barrels from old trading ships, still stamped with their original trading numbers, whilst others were drink casks, stained attractively dark over time with the various spirits they had contained.

Propped up against them, on a phone call – that would look good, or slouched in the booth in a t-shirt, muscular arms on display. But the one he was definitely after was the bartender behind the bar itself, pouring a tap beer or a measure of a spirit – perhaps one of the old, expensive brandy’s stored in elegant, dark green bottles.

All he had to do was convince him.

The bartender in question finished off the round he was pouring and made his way over to him, his checked shirt rolled up over pleasantly tanned forearms, his dark eyes warm.

“Hello, Bilbo. Ususal?”

Bilbo nodded, watching as his friend poured a double measure of his favourite whisky out into a tumbler.

“One for you, too. How are you?”

“Good, it’s been busy recently,” he replaced the bottle on the back shelves after pouring a second. “Which is good, as I’m going to have to close for a few days for some renovations soon.” He tipped his drink towards Bilbo. “Thanks. How’ve you been?”

Bilbo smiled, and rubbed at the back of his neck, a little self-consciously. Every time someone asked him that question recently he’d found himself grinning like a fool, or flushing at the thought of Thorin.

“Everything’s been good, actually.”

The bartender glanced at him, and smirked.

“Looks like it.”

Bilbo shook his head, trying very hard not to blush.

“So, renovations. What needs doing?”

The bartender waved at the ceiling.

“The lighting is shot, needs rewiring apparently. Not too big a job, but it’ll be dusty as hell. It’ll take a while to clean everything up.” He smiled, and nodded down the bar towards his daughter, who had her nose buried in a text book, notes in front of her.

She shot a glare at him.

“And you know who’ll be doing the bulk of the cleaning, eh Da?”

Bard sighed, long-sufferingly.

“Oh, for children that do as they’re told.”

Sigrid smiled fondly at him.

“Your bar, your problem, Da.”

Her father rolled his eyes, but it was an affectionate action, and he couldn’t stop the smile that quirked across his face. Bilbo took a sip of his drink, rolling the peaty flavour around his mouth for a moment before commenting.

“Well, I’m happy to give you a hand if you need it. The joys of a career in art – I don’t have to keep regular hours.”

Bard turned his gaze onto Bilbo, hardening in suspicion.

“What do you want?”

Bilbo would have liked to protest, but he _did_ have ulterior motives.

“I need a favour.”

Bard only looked more suspicious.

“You need someone to fix your kitchen cabinets kind of favour, or slay a dragon for you kind of favour?”

Bilbo grinned beseechingly. “Somewhere in the middle.”

Bard sighed, and folded his arms.

“I’m listening.”

“I need a model.”

“Not a chance in hell.”

An hour and half a bottle of scotch later, Bard had been worn down, and Bilbo left feeling a little tipsy but satisfied.

 

\--

 

 

“You know, you can still back out of this.”

Bilbo laughed.

“I thought this was my punishment for making you a model?”

Thorin shook his head.

“It was, but on further reflection I’ve decided that my family is _too_ much of a punishment for anyone to deal with. Come on,” he tugged at Bilbo’s arm, “We can go catch a matinee.”

Bilbo laughed again, grabbing hold of Thorin’s hand and towing him towards Dis’ front door.

“You coward.”

“Or Chinese food,” Thorin mused. Bilbo shook his head. “I know a great cocktail bar?”

Bilbo rang the doorbell, squeezing Thorin’s hand quickly before letting go to fuss at his hair, trying to get his curls under control again. They’d been quite neat before Thorin had picked him up and spent a good few minutes nuzzling at them.

“They’re _your_ family,” he reminded him.

Thorin shorted. “All the more reason not to see them.”

Dis opened the door, looking radiant in a wide smile and a wrap-around sundress, her dark hair pulled back from her face in a loose chignon.

“Hello, Thorin. Bilbo! It’s lovely to see you again. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Happy birthday, thanks for inviting me.”

Dis, dispensing of all formalities, threw her arms around Bilbo as they stepped into the hallway. A little overwhelmed, he hugged her back, being careful to avoid squashing the flowers in his hands. He handed them to her as she pulled away, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly at the warm welcome.

“Ah, these are for you.”

The large bunch of variegated tulips was thrust unceremoniously at Thorin so that Dis had arms free to hug him again.

“You sweetheart, you didn’t have to do that.”

Thorin rolled his eyes.

“Dis, let him go, he can’t breathe.”

She pulled away again with a pout. “And where is my present from you, brother dear?”

He shook his head, but passed the wrapped gift over none the less.

“You’re a child.”

She grinned, but any response was cut off by a thundering of footsteps from the other room as Fili and Kili came ploughing into the hallway. Kili grabbed hold of Bilbo’s hands, spinning him around with a broad grin on his face. Thorin groaned internally, wondering – for neither the first nor the last time – if his nephew would ever begin to act like a reasonable adult.

“Kili, leave him be!”

“Bilbo doesn’t mind, do you?”

Bilbo found himself face to face with the widest pair of eyes that he had ever seen, soft brown eyes staring down at him like a lost, adorable puppy, screaming for someone to look after him and possibly feed him something. Preferably a dessert, in large portions.

Thorin cleared his throat.

“You remember Kili.”

 “Umm… yes. Hard to forget.”

Kili linked an arm through Bilbo’s, and began to tow him away through the hallway, Fili following and blocking off any means of escape. Thorin tried to protest, but Balin appeared, ushering him into the kitchen.

Bilbo was dragged through the house to a wide, bright conservatory, the stone floors covered in attractive, colourful rugs. It overlooked a large, slightly overgrown garden, but before Bilbo could really take it in he found himself pushed down onto a sofa and bracketed on both sides by a pair of smiling, blonde men. It took him a moment to realise he wasn’t seeing double, but had actually been pushed down between Frerin and Fili.

“Oh,” he managed to say as Frerin loomed over him, his long, wayward hair pushed back behind his ears. “Um. Nice to meet you again.”

Kili flopped down on an ottoman by Bilbo’s feet, turning those dangerous eyes back up at him and addressing him sincerely without a pause or word of greeting.

“Can we call you Uncle Bilbo?”

Fili snorted with laughter. Bilbo was pretty sure a nineteen year old boy shouldn’t have been able to sound as sweet and innocent as his own, six-year-old nephew. The very idea seemed wrong, but Kili still managed it.

“Um, if you really want to?”

“Thanks, Uncle Bilbo!”

Frerin poked him in the side.

“C’mon, _Uncle_ Bilbo, relax. We’re not going to bite.” He leered a little but Bilbo was more prepared this time, and raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Unless you _want_ us to.”

Kili shoved at Frerin’s legs.

“Uncle Thorin’ll murder you if he hears you. And I want to add to my number of Uncles, not lose any, thanks.”

Frerin laughed, and threw himself back against the cushions of the sofa, clearly not that concerned by the threat.

“So how long have you been seeing my brother now?”

“About eight weeks?”

“That’s actually pretty impressive for Thorin. He doesn’t normally either runs out of patience or pisses off his dates with his bad temper. How have you managed it?”

Bilbo was surprised. “He doesn’t seem to that that much of a bad temper?”

The three Durin’s stared at him in shock.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Uncle Thorin is the _angriest_ man we know.”

“Except maybe Dwalin when Thorin beats him at something.”

Bilbo inclined his head to one side.

“Really? Huh. I mean, I know he can be a bit grumpy sometimes, but I’ve never seen him get angry at anything.”

The three really were looking at him like he was a foreign species now, shooting each other untranslatable glances.

“Seriously?” Kili responded eventually, a little hesitant. “Our Uncle Thorin? Tall guy, dark hair, perpetual scowl?”

Bilbo shrugged, honestly not sure what to say. Thorin had his moments, and did tend to huff a bit, but he was always sweet, surprisingly awkward at times, and always ready to pull Bilbo into an embrace. Bilbo didn’t think he’d ever known anyone who cuddled quite so prolifically when they were alone, though public displays of affection were a much rarer occurrence, to Bilbo’s relief.

Seriously, he’d never had so many kisses pressed to his forehead in his life.

“Urgh,” commented Frerin. “Look at him, he’s practically simpering.”

Quite forgetting that this was Thorin’s family, who he was supposed to be impressing, Bilbo jabbed Frerin in the stomach with the sharp point of his elbow.

Frerin grunted in pain, but his nephews were laughing, so Bilbo wasn’t too worried.

Thankfully it seemed the three of them hadn’t had any particular plan when they had dragged Bilbo out to the balcony, and after that awkward conversation Bilbo spent the next half an hour fielding various questions about his job and his life, which he had been expecting anyway. He found himself agreeing to a lunch with Fili to go over his paper – and he could have done with a warning on that front, Gandalf – and Fili was enthusiastically quizzing him on one photograph in particular when Dis called them through for dinner.

Bilbo might have been a little relieved that he was able to escape and find Thorin again: as friendly as these three Durin’s were, they were also slightly overwhelming, and he was feeling a little rude about being sat in Dis’ house without speaking to her.

Fili and Kili threw themselves up and out of the doorway, but before he could follow he found his escape blocked as Frerin leant against the doorway, looking down at him with a grin.

“Anyway, Bilbo… just one last thing.”

Bilbo nodded, wondering if he could throw himself through the gap between the door and Frerin’s body. Frerin’s expression suddenly hardened, his smile disappearing and a frown replacing it – it made him the family resemblance between him and Thorin all the more pronounced, and Bilbo couldn’t help but wonder how different Thorin would look if he smiled more often.

“Thorin… I may be bit of a bastard to him, but that’s because he’s my big brother, so I’m entitled to.” He levelled a finger at Bilbo, pointed at his chest, close enough that he was nearly jabbing him with it.

“Has Thorin told you much about our father?” Bilbo shook his head, and Frerin rolled his eyes.

“Figures. He doesn’t like to talk about it. He was always pretty hard on us, growing up, but even more so on Thorin. Dis and I could get away with a lot more, but Thorin always had to be serious, and he never really got to let go, just have fun. We all thought he’d relax when Thorin got older, but he never did: Thorin spent most of his life working to prove himself, and everything else got shoved to the wayside.

“He doesn’t…” Frerin trailed off then, looking almost uncertain and impossibly young for a moment before his face hardened again. “He doesn’t do things casually, and he doesn’t fall for people often. He’s not the kind of man that likes to let people in, but he’s falling for you, and pretty hard. I’ve never seen him like this, not with anyone.”

Bilbo’s eyes widened slightly, and Frerin actually did poke him then, before continuing.

“You do anything to hurt him, anything at all, and you’ll have me to answer to.”

Then the broad smile was back, without even a flicker, leaving Bilbo speechless at the sudden shift in personality. Frerin threw an arm around him, ruffling his hair, and began to lead him back towards the dining room.

“You make him happy, though, and you’ll have our thanks and love for ever.”

Thorin caught sight of them as they came in, and he raised his eyebrows in a silent question. Bilbo smiled back, and Frerin peeling himself off, leaving the shorter man able to move over towards him. Thorin took his hand, without embarrassment, and Bilbo couldn’t help but squeeze back, smiling up at him. If he’d had any doubts about the quality of Thorin’s character or the goodness of his heart, the unswerving loyalty and love of his family would have been enough to assuage them.

Thorin smiled gently down at him, though he had a cautious eye on his brother’s beaming face.

“Everything okay?” he murmured.

Bilbo stretched up, pressing a kiss to the corner of Thorin’s mouth before he could think better of doing so in front of their audience.

“Fine,” he mumbled back, before catching sight of the smirks from around the rest of the table, taking a seat with a barely disguised blush. Thorin settled in next to him, a reassuring hand on Bilbo’s thigh, casting a warning eye at his sister, who looked about ready to _coo._

“Dis, everything looks wonderful.”

Bilbo was being entirely honest: the spread she had laid out for them would have done his parents proud, and they were not a couple who had low standards when it came to meals. A large joint of lamb had been roasted in a herby crust, along with sliced onions, carrots and sweet potatoes, all caramelised in thin layer of honey. There was a huge dish of steamed greens mixed with slivered almonds, and the crispiest looking roast potatoes that Bilbo had even seen, alongside a gently steaming jug of elderberry and port reduction and two large ceramic baking dishes of figs, one load wrapped in prosciutto, others filled with goats cheese and drizzled in balsamic. His eyes were wide at the dish of creamed leeks, the spring green and pomegranate seed salad, and the golden filo pie, apparently filled with herby Portobello mushrooms and feta.

He was a little surprised to find out that Dwalin was a strict vegetarian, but kept that to himself.

Dis smiled back from him, filling everyone’s glasses with wine – and giving Kili a warning glance, to which he rolled his eyes and took a large, deliberate gulp.

“Thank you, Bilbo. I hope my boys haven’t been tiring you out?”

Frerin laughed, and everyone managed to ignore the slightly worrying menace to it, although Thorin did briefly tighten his hold on Bilbo’s leg.

“Ah, not at all. They’ve been… charming.”

Dis grinned back, clearly not at all convinced, but amused none the less.

“It sounds like you have some experience dealing with relatives?”

Bilbo shook his head, grinning appreciatively as Dis passed him dish after dish to fill up his plate from.

“Not really. I’m an only child. My mother was from a large family, but she wasn’t that close to them, so I only tend to see them for weddings, christenings, that kind of thing. I have one cousin on my Dad’s side though, and we’re very close. I lived with him and his parents in the summer’s between university after my parents died.”

Dis’ eyes were full of compassion, and it looked for a moment as if she was going to launch herself across the table to hug him again.

“You poor _thing._ ”

Bilbo started, surprised.

“Oh no, honestly. Drogo and his wife are very good friends, and I look after their son all the time. He calls me Uncle Bilbo-” and he shot a half fond, half exasperated glance at Kili. “So I’m well used to nephews. The rest of my father’s family I see a couple of times a year – Prim and Drogo host big get-togethers now and again.”

Dwalin speared a tree of broccoli aggressively, pointing it at him before thrusting it into his mouth.

“That’s not nearly enough.”

Bilbo blinked.

“Um, well. What?”

Dwalin shook his head, chewing as if the vegetable had done something to offend him personally, before pointing at Bilbo a tad threateningly.

“You need anything, you come to me.”

Bilbo’s mouth opened, and he glanced around the table to see if he had heard correctly. Thorin was gaping, a blush high on his cheekbones, but everyone else just continued eating as if Dwalin was being perfectly logical. He took them in – the siblings, cousins, nephews – and a strange, wistful smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He had always wanted a bigger family.

“Thank you,” he told Dwalin, who grunted in response before turning his attention to the figs.

Conversation went a little more traditionally after that: he found out that he had seen several of the films that Frerin had written over the years, and that Dis was an English Literature professor. They fell into a lengthy debate after that, on the subject of Classical Literature. He admitted that he had never meant to become a photographer, but had instead thought to become a teacher himself, either in literature or history (as the study of the ancient world had prepared him for both). They only left their discussion of Homeric epic behind when Frerin started to groan at them, glaring over his plate of food.

“Guys, this is meant to be a _celebration,_ you’re killing me here.”

Dis shushed him, grinning, but they moved into more accessible conversation topics after that.

He could not quite manage to shake the feeling that he was being subtly interrogated (and sometimes not so subtly), but he was quite sure he was holding his own against the unspeakable force that was the collected Durin’s: Thorin took to squeezing his leg every now and then, as if to reassure him of the same thing.

Despite their knowing looks and intense _interest_ Bilbo actually found himself quite comfortable, enjoying himself even if Thorin wasn’t saying much. He suspected that was habit rather than displeasure though: his family were a vocal bunch, their conversation’s often running over each other’s accidentally, and the affectionate crinkle to Thorin’s eyes assured Bilbo that he too was perfectly content.

It was as Kili was telling him about university – he was studying music, much to Bilbo’s surprise, having won a place at the highly prestigious music academy in the city – that he became suddenly aware of a strange dampness around his left ankle, and looked down in alarm only to see a rather pathetic looking pair of eyes staring up at him from where his was resting on Bilbo’s foot, drooling rather excessively.

“Um,” he managed, before Thorin noticed and swore.

Bilbo patted his arm.

“Thorin, I knew about the pug before I agreed to date you.” He stared at him, his expression serious. “I understood the risks.”

The pug shifted – it was lying across Thorin’s feet, where it unusually ended up – and began chewing one of Bilbo’s laces. Frerin snickered behind his hand.

His grave expression broke down then and he started laughing along with the rest of the table as Thorin grumbled.

“It’s not my pug.”

Bilbo laced their hands together.

“It’s sat on your feet.”

Thorin glared.

“Doesn’t make it mine.”

Bilbo’s smile didn’t lessen in the slightest. “I _knew_ you’d be a softy when it came to dogs.”

“Hmm,” Balin agreed, “Thorin has always been a soft touch when it comes to small, cute things.”

It took Bilbo a moment to process exactly what the older man was saying, but he stared at him in disbelief when he did. Balin simply beamed beatifically back, looking for a worrying moment a lot like Gandalf.

Fili hid his laughter behind his hand, though Kili was not quite so successful in disguising his mirth. Frerin wasn’t even bothering trying to pretend he wasn’t amused.

“Shut up, the lot of you,” managed Thorin after a moment of shock.

Bilbo was pretty sure they could have fried eggs on his cheeks, as warm as they were.

“Oh, but Thorin,” Dis replied, “You have to admit, he _is_ adorable.”

It was vague enough that she could have denied she was talking about Bilbo, but still quite obvious to everyone present that that was who she was talking about. Thorin wondered if it was possible to kill someone with his gaze. He was certainly going to try.

“ _Shut up,_ Dis.”

Bilbo buried his head in his hands.

 

\--

 

 **22:48     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
Had a lovely chat with your boy-toy.

 _22:51     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
He’s thirty-five, hardly a boy. And god, what did you say?

 **22:54     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
But he’s so cute, and short. And nothing important.

 _22:55     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
Frerin, I swear to god, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t been born. What the hell did you say?

 **22:58     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
I wouldn’t worry. He didn’t seem scared off.

 _22:59     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
I’ll kill you.

 **23:02     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
I like him. He makes you nicer.

 _23:05     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
Go die.

 **23:10     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
Love you too, bro.

 **23:11     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
Seriously though, keep this one.

 **23:11     16/03/2014**  
From: Frerin Durin  
Don’t fuck it up.

 _23:17     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
I don’t intend to.

 _22:18     16/03/2014_  
To: Frerin Durin  
Now go to hell.

 

\--

 

Thorin swung at Dwalin, who evaded it easily.

“Come on, old man. Just because you’re in your forties doesn’t mean you can’t do better than that.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Thorin had been training with Dwalin for over fifteen years, and in that time they had gotten to know each of their weak spots as well as they knew their own. That included the best way to rile each other up, and in recent years nothing seemed to quite get to Thorin like the reminder of his age. Thorin’s next blow landed solidly, shifting him back a couple of feet.

They’d taken up kickboxing when they were both young and easily riled, at the suggestion of Dwalin’s mother. They both suffered from rather unfortunate tempers which had only been closer to the surface in their youth, and it had been a good way to learn to control them, limiting themselves to the verbal spats they shared with their family.

It had served many purposes over the years, Thorin reflected as Dwalin put his hands up in submission, from letting it out tension from stressful days at work to making it easier to deal with unpleasant people (imagining them at the receiving end of a blow in particular), but one of the most useful was as an outlet for sexual frustration.

The thought only reminded him of why he was annoyed in the first place, and laid into his sparring partner determinedly until Dwalin raised his hands in submission, swiping at the sweat beading on his forehead with his arm.

“Geez, you’re going strong today. What’s pissed you off?”

There was no way in hell Thorin was going to admit his previous thought, so he simply shrugged.

“Too much Frerin in one week.”

Dwalin laughed: it was an entirely believable lie. It was very easy to have too much of Frerin, particularly when you were his family.

Having him present the first time you brought round the new man you were seeing would have been an undoubtedly nerve-wracking experience, he reflected, and rather unfortunate given how much of his time Frerin spent in France. Though it did not seem to have gone too badly – Dwalin had rather suspected that Thorin’s younger brother might have pulled Bilbo to the side at some point to offer some threatening words along the if-you-hurt-my-brother-you’ll-pay line, but he seemed to have restrained himself, as far as he knew.

Thorin threw him a water bottle, which he caught gratefully.

“How’s your lad? Think he managed to impress the family. Kili wouldn’t shut up about his _Uncle Bilbo_ after the two of you left.”

Thorin chuckled, wiping his face with a towel as the two of them made their way to the changing rooms to shower. Bilbo had told him about the name his youngest nephew had decided on, a little cautiously as if he had been worried that it might have annoyed Thorin. To Thorin’s own surprise it hadn’t grated in the slightest, and not only because he was starting to seriously contemplate the idea of Bilbo being around for a long time, perhaps becoming an actual uncle to Kili someday.

“He’s fine.”

Dwalin elbowed him in the side.

“Didn’t get scared off by us?”

Thorin rolled his eyes.

“Apparently not. Despite the lot of you – and your bloody over-protective moment.”

Dwalin sniffed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Thorin eyed him.

“‘You need anything, you come to me’?  C’mon now.”

Dwalin was definitely not hiding his face in his towel, and from the amusement in Thorin’s tone, his friend definitely did not know it.

“It’s a shame, nice lad like him not having any family.”

“He’s got family, Dwalin. They’re just not as loud or as obnoxious as ours. But anyway, he thought – in his words – that you were all _lovely._ ”

Dwalin seemed genuinely surprised, but also rather pleased.

“Good. Dis was wittering about asking him to take a family portrait.”

Thorin frowned.

“He wouldn’t be in it, then.”

He froze.

Dwalin stared at him, then started laughing.

“You sentimental fucker.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled.

“That was fucking priceless. You _sap._ ”

It was strategic retreat, not running away, Thorin decided as he strode off towards the showers, Dwalin’s laughter echoing behind him.

 

\--

 

Bilbo squinted through his viewfinder, a little distracted by the way Smeagol was wrapping himself territorially around his ankles, glaring at Thorin through his disconcertingly wide eyes, obviously unimpressed with the amount of attention that his pet (because cats, Bilbo was convinced, were quite certain that they themselves were the masters, and their owners the pet in their relationship) was giving to this interloper.

He couldn’t blame Smeagol for being jealous: for the last few hours he had been focused solely on Thorin, although it was for a good cause – he was determined that he would get the first of his planned photographs taken tonight, whether it killed him or not.

Clearly his cat had taken that quite to heart, if the way he kept trying to trip Bilbo was any indication.

Although he might have fallen over anyway at the sight of Thorin.

His dark jeans clung distractingly to his broad thighs when he sat, and his casual, navy blazer was rolled up past the toned lines of his forearms, revealing a smattering of dark hair. The watch that had been picked out was of course in place, the shirt underneath unbuttoned to the breastbone. Despite the fact that the clothes were for the photograph, Bilbo was starting to feel slightly under-dressed in his favourite jumper, a slouchy, dark green number that was at least two sizes too large for him, and hung down to mid-thigh.

Thorin was perched at the bar stool at Bilbo’s seldom-used breakfast bar, a newspaper spread out in front of him, and had actually managed to distract himself enough reading the day’s headlines that he’d relaxed enough for Bilbo to get some good shots in. There was one in particular that Bilbo was fairly certain was perfect, but he had continued, just to make sure. It was exactly has he had planned, the hand wearing the watch raised with one half of the paper, his face in a slight frown.

It was a good picture, Bilbo knew. He was content with it, and he knew that the Arkena people would be delighted.

(Though he was not unconvinced that their enthusiasm for Thorin’s portraits didn’t have something more to do with the way that the executive’s voice quivered when discussing them, rather than the merits of his photography.

Not that he could really blame her).

That photograph wasn’t his favourite though.

There was one that he was fairly sure he would end up making his laptop background in a moment of sentimental weakness, knowledge which he would very adamantly keep to himself, thank you very much. It showed Thorin with a slight smile on his face, glancing up at the camera, wine in hand. It was an intimate picture: he didn’t think Thorin had known his camera was ready when he had raised his head, smiling at something Bilbo had said, and it looked incredibly natural, personal, _real._

There was a warmth in his eyes that had been captured by the camera.

He looked – though it made Bilbo’s chest tighten a little to acknowledge it – like a man who was looking at someone he cared for deeply, and perhaps even loved.

 _Oh be quiet, Bilbo_ , he chided himself, frowning. You’re getting ahead of yourself again.

Maybe he shouldn't make it his background after all - he would probably only end up distracted every time he logged on.

“I like your jumper.”

Bilbo looked up from his camera screen, still frowning a little. Thorin was staring at him, one hand on the stem of his wine glass as if he had forgotten to remove it. As attractive as the photograph was, he couldn’t help but reflect that it was still nothing compared to the real thing.

“Your jumper. It’s so big on you. It’s… cute.”

Bilbo knew he should have been riled at being called that: from anyone else it would have wound him up, and he had not enjoyed being called as such by Thorin’s family only the week before. He had never been tall, and there was only so much teasing and well-meant head-patting that one person could stand before they began to take offense at people making any comment that reflected back on his height, and 'cute' definitely counted as one of those. But Thorin looked so decidedly earnest, his gaze so soft, that he ducked his head instead, trying not to blush.

“Hush, you. I’m working.”

His response was a deep, rumbling chuckle that made something in his chest flutter. When he glanced back up at Thorin he saw that the man was still staring, his chin resting on his hand now, his elbow propped up against the counter. He looked affectionate, content…

He saw that Bilbo was looking, and quirked a small but decidedly deadly smile at him.

He didn’t look away.

Oh, that really wasn’t fair.

A few more pictures, by which point Smeagol had retreated to his cupboard with an unimpressed, hacking cough – he’d taken the cat to the vet on numerous occasions, and none of them had been able to find a reason for the strange noises that the creature made - and another glass of wine poured for Thorin, and he knew he couldn’t leave the unwilling model sitting awkwardly there any longer. He was pretty sure Thorin had read every article in the newspaper by now, and still wasn’t complaining about being bored. He’d had worse subjects who were professional models.

Despite his teasing, he honestly was grateful to Thorin for agreeing. Arkena might have given him the contract anyway, but it hadn’t been a sure thing – there were plenty of photographers looking for work out there, many of them with much more fashion experience than he had himself, who could have done just as good a job. But a contract like this could set him up very nicely – one major advertising contract under his belt would put him in a good position to get more.

And it would be a successful campaign, he just knew – particularly the ones of Thorin, who really did deserve a break now and for Bilbo to stop drifting off in his head. He glanced at the clock – ten o’clock in the evening already, he noted with surprise. Bilbo had kept him sitting there for much longer than he had intended.

He had dessert in the fridge, and a second bottle of wine to open – a worthy treat for a worthy model, he thought.

And if Thorin ended up with cream on his face again, Bilbo didn’t think he’d be able to resist wiping it off. Hell, the way Thorin was looking at him now, eyes full of heat, he’d probably _lick_ it off.

He turned back to his camera to try and avoid thinking _those_ kinds of thoughts.

“Are we done?” The question wasn’t impatient, or irritated: it was warm, as if Thorin was trying not to smile as he said it, and Bilbo nodded.

“I think so. I’ve got everything I need.”

“I haven’t.”

Bilbo looked up; he’d been a little distracted checking over the last few pictures, and it took him a moment to realise what Thorin was implying. He raised his eyebrows at him, but Thorin was staring, undeterred.

 “Can I kiss you now?”

Bilbo couldn’t help but smile back at that, running his hand through his hair as he set his camera carefully down on the counter.

“If you must,” he sighed, teasingly.

Thorin got to his feet and took the couple of steps needed to reach him. He looked down at Bilbo for just a moment before cradling his head in both of his hands, one thumb running quickly, gently, over his lower lip: then he was kissing him, licking his way into Bilbo’s mouth before even had time to think. Passion uncurled in Bilbo’s stomach and he pressed himself against Thorin, pushing the taller man back until they met the counter, Bilbo using the additional security to push himself up Thorin’s chest, up on tip-toes now, their entire bodies flush together.

Thorin’s thigh nudged between his own as he pulled Thorin’s shirt from the waistband of his jeans, sliding his hands up the hard expanse of his chest, hot to the touch. Thorin was like a furnace, every bit of skin radiating heat, and Bilbo wondered – not for the first time – what it would feel like to press against him without any layers of fabric in the way.

He let out a broken noise as Thorin moved one arm, wrapping around his middle to hold him in place, a hand skimming over his arse as it moved up under his jumper to find the bare skin of his back, nails running gently over his hip.

Thorin’s tongue pressed insistently in his mouth and he felt himself quickly hardening: if the firm line in Thorin’s jeans was any indication, he wasn’t the only one.

The only thing that might possibly have distracted him at this moment in time was his cat, but luckily Smeagol had at least some sense of self-preservation, and stayed tucked away in his cupboard.

He scratched lightly at Thorin’s chest, feeling his abdomen jump slightly in response, and thought he might melt as Thorin rolled his hips, providing a moment much needed friction between his legs: it was over much too soon. He made a quiet, moaning sound, without entirely meaning to, and pulled back just enough to look up at Thorin, who’s breathing was ragged.

“Please,” was all he managed to say before Thorin was kissing him again and surging forward, pushing him slowly but surely through the kitchen door, both hands under his jumper now.

They paused for a moment in the hall, only so Thorin could pull his jumper and shirt off in one single motion, dropping them both on the floor, his mouth back on Bilbo’s before the other man had time to catch a breath, propelling him again.

His elbow skimmed the wall in their haste, and Thorin let out a grunt as his hip ricocheted off a door frame.

Bilbo stumbled for a moment, but Thorin’s arms were keeping him steady. He took the opportunity to push at the shoulders of his blazer, and Thorin unwillingly let go so Bilbo could take it off him, turning his attention to the buttons of his shirt next. The blazer fell to the floor, and Bilbo found himself quite unable to care that it would be wrinkled beyond measure by the morning.

He was doing quite well with Thorin’s shirt despite the slight shake to his hands, but then Thorin found the curve of his neck, a place he’d nosed at and pressed quick, soft kisses to before: now he was kissing it in earnest, his teeth and tongue working gently but firmly to bring up what would probably be quite an impressive mark by the end. At the other man's gasp, Thorin drew a thick ridge of the skin between his teeth, tugging lightly, just once, before resuming his work. Bilbo's hands stilled for a moment as his head fell back, taken by surprise, a flush of arousal shooting down his spine.

He would astutely deny moaning as Thorin’s teeth bit just a little harder, his hands hot as they moved rhythmically up and down the smaller man’s back.

Bilbo’s hips jerked forwards and he ripped the last button off by accident, but the unmistakable _growl_ that Thorin let out was worth it.

They were in the bedroom before he realised, the backs of his knees hitting the mattress, threatening to topple the both of them over – an idea that sounded quite romantic in theory, though Bilbo had learnt before that he would only end up with the wind knocked out of him. Instead he hooked a leg up onto the bed, using the taller man to balance himself as he pulled the other leg up afterwards, so that he ended up on his knees in front of Thorin’s bare chest.

And oh.

It was a lovely chest.

Before he could think better of it he ran his mouth along the defined line of Thorin’s pectoral, quite pleased with the audible intake of breath he received in response. Thorin’s chest was covered in coarse, dark hair, pleasant against his lips. He rubbed his nose against it appreciatively: he’d always had a soft spot for well-groomed body hair.

Thorin's back was just as pleasant as his front, Bilbo was able to think as his fingers sought out the hard lines of muscle, his nails drawing patterns against them lightly.

His mouth found Thorin’s nipple, drawing it between his teeth, perhaps a little harder than he intended. Thorin's pectoral stretched under his mouth as the taller man's head fell back, just a little; he clearly didn't mind the slightly rougher treatment.

Then Thorin’s hands were on his face, tilting it to look up at him, and he tried to catch his breath. The eyes staring down at him were dark and wide, arousal evident, his mouth slightly open.

The sight was rather breath-taking.

“Bilbo…” and it was perhaps a little satisfying to hear that Thorin sounded just as wrecked as he was feeling. Bilbo’s hands found Thorin’s hips, the sharp line of his pelvis, and he took a _great_ deal of please at the strangled noise Thorin let out when his thumbs hooked underneath the waist of his jeans, rubbing against the soft skin.

“What… I mean…”

He was struggling, trying to ask, and it was impossibly endearing. Bilbo waved distractedly at his bedside table as his skimming fingers reached the button of the jeans, drawing them open.

“Top drawer, and then if you don’t fuck me I swear to god-”

He didn’t have time to finish whatever his threat would have been – he wasn’t sure himself – because Thorin was kissing him again, pushing him down and up the bed so he could crawl between Bilbo’s legs, a hand grasping for the drawer.

Bilbo's arms wrapped around his neck, bringing Thorin closer down to him, a heavy and enjoyable weight across his chest. He nipped and Thorin's lower lip, drawing it in between his teeth to suck, and Thorin cursed against his mouth, their hips rolling against each other, Thorin still desperately reaching for the drawer.

He gave in the end, and pulled away with a frustrated growl, rolling off Bilbo to open it with a jerk, giving Bilbo just enough time to pull off his own jeans and boxers. Thorin found the bottle of lube, spilling the box of condoms over the drawer as he got hold of one, only to almost drop them both again when Bilbo began to tug his jeans down over his hips, nails skimming over the thatch of hair uncovered.

“Off,” he mumbled against Thorin’s mouth, but the taller man was already working on it, shoving them down his long, muscled legs with one hand, the other keeping him propped up over Bilbo. Bilbo rolled his hips as soon he was done, dragging their erections together, and with a muffled groan Thorin took the both of them in one hand, his fist moving up and down the length of the them, setting a steady pace.

Bilbo reached for the lube, managing to uncap it one handed after a few tries, dribbling it onto his hand and reaching down to past his perineum, massaging gently. The touch of the other man’s hand against him was sending warm waves of pleasure through his chest, distracting him from his task, and he had to prompt himself to continue, wanting the feeling of Thorin deep inside him, pressed as close to him as he could manage.

Thorin sighed against his mouth as he realised what the smaller man was doing, letting go of their weeping erections to move his hand down to join Bilbo’s.

Thorin’s finger pushed passed the ring of muscle, relaxed by Bilbo’s previous work, and Bilbo bit down on Thorin’s lower lip in surprise at the feeling of being breached, causing the other man to grunt. He slowed, not moving the penetrating finger but rubbing gently at Bilbo’s perineum with his thumb.

Bilbo hummed happily; Thorin chuckled at the sound, resting himself on an elbow so he could reach for the lube, needing more to ease the way; he hadn't waited this long only to screw up by causing pain, rather than pleasure. A second finger pushed in, the stretch of it hot but not painful, pleasure already coiling low in his stomach as they began to rock in and out of him, twisting slightly, a third pressing against the ring of muscle.

Their kisses slowed, pressing against each other insistently and breathlessly, and Bilbo found himself moaning audibly as the third finger pressed in, the stretch a burn now, but quickly easing into something much more pleasurable. Thorin, still propped up on his elbow above him, moved to stroke his jaw with his free hand, a tender motion meant to soothe.

“Okay?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse.

Bilbo nodded, his nose nuzzling against Thorin’s. He could feel Thorin’s answering chuckle through his own chest, and he peppered kisses against Thorin’s face, wherever he could reach.

“Good,” he answered. “ _Good.”_

Bilbo took them both in hand again, stroking them slowly, knowing that if he moved his hand much quicker he might have finished before they had a chance to progress any further. Thorin was staring down at him, his mouth slightly open, his fingers still inside him, slowly quickening again until he was aching for something deeper, larger.

“ _Please,_ ” he rasped out, pulling Thorin’s face to his to kiss him thoroughly, the other man’s answering groan lost.

Thorin pulled back, rocking back on his knees so that he could grab one of Bilbo’s pillows, lifting the smaller man by the hips to slide underneath him, for a better angle. His hands stroked briefly over Bilbo’s stomach, hips, up to his neck again.

“ _Now_ , Thorin,” Bilbo felt empty now his fingers had left him, and couldn’t bring himself to care that his voice was breathy, almost whining. Thorin swore as he grappled briefly with the condom, his erection thick and heavy in his hand, more than ready.

He paused, his self-restraint in tatters but present enough for him to catch Bilbo’s eyes pleading.

“Ready?”

Bilbo laughed, though it was almost a groan.

“Hurry up,” he began, but he cut himself off with a gasp as Thorin sank into him, burying his face in Bilbo’s neck.

“Fuck,” he swore against the skin, sucking at it for a moment, rolling the skin between his teeth. “Fuck, Bilbo.”

Bilbo scrambled at Thorin’s shoulders, locking his ankles behind his back to pull him in even closer, even deeper inside of him.

Thorin rocked his hips, rolling gently almost all the way out before pushing back in with more force. It was wonderfully tight, and for a moment he was worried that it might be uncomfortable for Bilbo, but then the smaller man let out a breathy moan, his own hips canting up to meet him, his eyes flickering shut and a smile curving across his face. He began to rock in and out, setting a gentle pace that quickly became more and more forceful as pleasure began to build low in his abdomen, Bilbo’s cock weeping between them.

He angled his hips, trying to find the spot that would leave Bilbo breathless, and after a few moments shifted, sitting back on his knees a little more so he had hands free to lift Bilbo’s own hips, angling deeper inside of him.

Bilbo let out a startled noise of pleasure, loudly echoing through the apartment when Thorin did find it, groaning as Thorin wrapped a hand around his cock, trying to keep it in time with his thrusts, though he was quickly losing both composure and rhythm himself. The pleasure was almost reaching unbearable levels, Bilbo still hot and tight around him, each hit to his prostate causing him to clench around Thorin’s length.

“Thorin,” Bilbo began, little more than a moan, and Thorin leant down the little that he could without breaking pace, pressing a quick kiss to his shoulder.

“Come on, Bilbo,” he groaned, “Come for me.”

Bilbo’s eyes shot open, looking up at Thorin wildly for a moment before he felt that electric pleasure as Thorin hit his prostate once more, and then he was coming over Thorin’s fist, Thorin groaning at the sudden clench around him, pleasure spiking unbearably before he was spilling himself in Bilbo, pressing in as close and deep as he could, his orgasm ripping through him as Bilbo was still rolling in the aftershocks of his own.

There was a long, slow minute in which they simply lay there, silently.

Bilbo reached to push his curls back from his forehead.

Well.

That had been worth the wait.

It took them a little time to be able to think again, let alone move, but when they did Thorin fell heavily onto his elbows, their chests pressed together. He rested his forehead against Bilbo’s.

“That…”

Bilbo laughed, and threw his arms around his back, burying his face in Thorin’s neck, damp with sweat. He winced a little as Thorin slowly drew out, more from the sudden tenderness than from actual pain, but then Thorin’s hands were running soothingly across his shoulders, and underneath his back. He didn’t even have time to make a sound of surprise when Thorin rolled them both, the larger man on his back now with Bilbo lying across his front, their legs tangled together.

“That was amazing,” he finally managed, reaching up to pull Bilbo down into another long kiss.

Bilbo hummed, very much in agreement, and pulled away. Thorin tried to chase his mouth but Bilbo reared back, smiling wryly.

“Shower.”

“Bah.” Thorin’s head fell back against the pillow as Bilbo rolled off him and onto his feet, but he didn’t protest when a hand tugged his wrist, drawing him off the bed.

His willingness earned him another kiss, fleeting and sweet. 

Bilbo’s fingers intertwined with his as the smaller man pulled him towards the bathroom, and Thorin realised that he was smiling, the kind of smile that would get him hours of teasing from any of his family if they saw it.

He felt a little uncertain as he watched Bilbo fuss finding fresh towels, as if he were a guest come to visit. It had been a long time since he had done anything like this, anything with real meaning behind it. Should he ask to stay, or would that be imposing?

Bilbo stepped into the large shower cubicle, turning the spray on, hissing at the cold water hit him. He dodged out of the way, before glancing over at Thorin, his head tilted.

“You okay?”

Thorin nodded, and Bilbo reached out a hand to pull him in.

“C’mon.”

Bilbo pressed himself against Thorin as soon as he was in reach, wrapping his arms back around his neck.  Thorin’s arms snuck around his middle, the side of his face already resting in Bilbo's curls, his hands moving slowly up and down the smooth length of Bilbo’s back, tracing the indent of his spine.

They weren't properly under the spray, but Bilbo seemed to have no intention of moving, arms firmly locked in the embrace, nose running alone Thorin’s collarbone.

Thorin huffled gently at him, and he could feel Bilbo smile in response against his shoulder.

“S’cold.”

Bilbo _was_ shivering, but the water was finally warming up, and Thorin drew them back under the shower head properly, dousing them both. He ran his hands through Bilbo’s damp curls idly as the smaller man snuggled into his shoulder, nuzzling at Thorin’s chest hair. Previous lovers had not been particularly fond of it, had made him feel almost a little self-conscious, and Bilbo’s lack of concern was endearing. Even now he rubbed his cheek gently against his chest, before pressing a kiss over Thorin’s heart.

It was pleasant, and Thorin could feel sleep creeping up on him. His arms around Bilbo’s shoulders, he yawned against the side of the shorter man’s hair.

“We should get out soon.”

Bilbo looked up at him, smiling, but there was something slightly hesitant in his gaze, as if he was worried about something.

“Hey, will you…” he paused, and Thorin frowned, his mouth pulling downwards automatically.

“Will you stay?”

He pulled back looking down at Bilbo, who shifted against him, looking embarrassed.

“Stay the night, I mean?”

Thorin shook his head in disbelief. The idea that Bilbo thought he would just pack up and leave dismissively made him feel distinctly uncomfortable: it had been the last thing on his mind. All he wanted to do was wrap himself around Bilbo’s naked body and fall back into bed.

But Bilbo was looking genuinely concerned, all the more so now Thorin was just staring at him without saying a word.

He shook himself, and bent to press a kiss against Bilbo's nose.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh, I'm still not happy with this chapter, but I delayed posting it enough. I may come back and re-work it after I've finished the last section, to make it feel a bit less awkward.


	4. Chapter 4

“I still don’t trust this damn car of yours, you know.”

Bilbo grinned at him, and turned up the music on his tape player, drowning out Thorin’s grumbles of protest. No matter how many times he had been in his car, its relationship with Thorin still had not improved – even now Thorin was running a hand through his hair, trying to tame the static fly-aways from where they brushed against the roof.

“Hush yourself,” he retorted, his grin still audible in his voice. “This car is older than _you_ are.”

Thorin raised an eyebrow, suppressing an answering smile in exchange for a stern expression.

“That is not a comforting thought, you know.”

Bilbo broke out in laughter, reaching over to pat his thigh comfortingly. Thorin’s expression began to break at the fond smile that was directed at him from the other side of the car. He slumped down in his seat a little, so their shoulders _just_ touched.

“I think you run quite well for your age, if that makes you feel any better.”

Thorin shot Bilbo a _look._

“You be quiet unless you want me to get out.”

“Of course,” replied Bilbo, trying to pull his expression into a neutral one, to hide his amusement. From the suspicious look that Thorin was levelling at him, he suspected that he was not particularly successful.

“This isn’t another one of your snow-picnics, is it?”

“Lord,” said Bilbo in reply, “You do like to complain, don’t you?” He couldn’t keep his grin in anymore and stared resolutely ahead, eyes fixed on the road rather than at the grumpy man next to him.

Thorin stuck in nose in the air.

“I just like to know what we’re doing.”

“You’re just very _suspicious._ ”

Thorin snorted. “I have to be, if you will insist on dragging me off mysteriously.”

Bilbo rolled his eyes.

“Honestly,” he said, “so uptight.”

Thorin mumbled something under his breath, a faint blush beginning across the bridge of his nose,

“Oh dear,” said Bilbo, “I suppose I will have to stop planning these surprises, wont I?”

“I didn’t say _that.”_

Thorin’s hand settled on his leg, squeezing gently, thumb stroking up and down. Bilbo shot him a smile, giving in on the pretence at irritation, and turned back to the road. The atmosphere was relaxed, the air cool outside the car windows.

Bilbo rested his hand over Thorin’s for a moment.

“But _no_ , we’re not going on a snow-picnic, because in case you didn’t notice, there hasn’t been snow on the ground in weeks.”

He shot him a look quickly. “And for that matter, there is nothing at all wrong with snow picnics.”

“Of course,” replied Thorin, hiding his smile by looking out of the window.

The car was has pulled out of the city almost an hour before, and Thorin had been too distracted by the sound of Bilbo’s laughter and the way that the sunlight (growing stronger with each passing day as spring slowly began to pick up warmth) played with his curls. They were longer now than Thorin had ever seen them, and it remained a constant struggle not to run his fingers through them, stroke them back from his forehead. As such, he’d been too distracted to properly pay attention to the direction that they were heading in, and though he would never have admitted it, he did have a rather poor sense of mental geography: he had no idea whether they were travelling south or north, east or west. The road signs that they passed did little to help him in figuring out where they were supposed to be going.

“So if it isn’t a picnic, then there won’t be any food involved?” Thorin looked sceptical, and Bilbo shot him an unimpressed glance.

“If you’re going to tease me then you’re not getting _any_.”

His tone was teasing, and for a moment Thorin wasn’t entirely sure if he was referring to sex or food, but wisely decided to shut up.

Bilbo stuck his tongue out at him when he realised that Thorin wasn’t going to take the bait, a smile curving up across his mouth.

“There actually isn’t a picnic. We’re just going to my favourite place for dinner.”

Thorin stared at him.

“We’re driving over an hour to go to a restaurant?”

Bilbo nodded, catching sight of Thorin’s incredulous expression out of the corner of his eye.

“Food is _very_ important, Thorin.”

The snort he got in response was not entirely unexpected.

They had passed through the familiar moorlands, passed where they had driven before, and down into the road that wound its way through the valleys between the moor peaks, through patches of woodland and along the shores of lakes. Spring had not thoroughly set in this high up: though snowdrops and bluebells had sprouted and bloomed in the protection of the pine trees, the moorland slopes were still in their winter colours, stark browns and dark purples rolling into mossy greens and dark slashes of peat. The shafts of sunlight reflected of the surface of the water, golden against the dark shades of the mountains; Thorin could catch the swift, white flicker of the occasional mountain hare still in its winter coat against that darkness. Not too long after they pulled into one of the small villages that clung to the sides of these lakes, sprawling out around the curve of them.

Bilbo pulled up in the tiny car park alongside the central road through the village, running parallel to the shoreline and the long, slate beach. It was not the kind of place that would attract hordes of tourists come the summer, bar a few of the more dedicated ramblers and nature hunters, but it would no doubt be quite beautiful in the bright July sunlight, framed by a clear sky. Even now, with the spring sunshine regularly blotted out by heavy grey clouds that raced across the sky, it had a strange sort of quality that was attractive, even if it was bleak: there was a sternness to the set of the mountains that spoke of a deferential stillness, a quiet peace. The pebbles and slate of the beach were worn round and smooth, and gleamed damp in the light; the lake lapped almost silently against the shore, moved by some unseen current.

“Where are we?” Thorin asked.

Bilbo looked oddly embarrassed for a moment, and unbuckled his seatbelt.

“This is where I grew up,” he replied after a moment. “We used to live here, before my parents passed away.”

Thorin frowned after him as Bilbo got after the car, and it took him a minute to realise that he too should get out, rather than sit there mutely. Bilbo was smiling gently at him by the time he came around the side of the car to join him, as if he already knew the worries that were running through Thorin’s mind; Thorin was not entirely sure if Bilbo wasn’t actually psychic, for he seemed able to understand exactly what was troubling him before he himself did.

Bilbo squeezed his wrist lightly, a point of pressure to ground them both.

“It’s alright,” he told him, “I come back here fairly often. It’s not a big deal”

Thorin nodded, and ran a thumb quickly across the line of Bilbo jaw, the unexpected sort of physical contact that the smaller man’s presence seemed to draw out of him, despite the fact that he had never been a particularly tactile person before.

Bilbo led him down the single-track road that followed the lake shoreline to the village proper, and to the tall, white-washed pub that bordered the beach. If the weather had been warmer Thorin might have suggested sitting out on the stone-flagged terrace that overlooked the view, but instead Bilbo lead him through the low door into the cosy interior, passing passed a dark wooden bar into a heated conservatory, the booth tables empty. Bilbo slid into one next to the window closest to the lake, and after a moment Thorin followed him.

“Do you want a drink?”

Bilbo smiled up at him.

“I’ll get it, it’s me who dragged you out here. Take a seat, look out at the lake.”

Bilbo got up to go to the bar, leaving Thorin behind with the view.

Thorin did not think that he was perhaps as… connected, to nature, as Bilbo sometimes seemed to be. When he was stressed or tired his response was often to go driving up into the moors, to prop himself up on the front of his car wrapped in a coat, just to stare out at the horizon and _breathe._ But seeing the size of this place seemed to explain it a little: if he had grown up surrounded by this kind of peace, then no wonder he needed the rolling expanse of hills to make him feel grounded again.

The tall mountains reached up dramatically towards the sky on either side of the narrow valley, gentling down to sheep pastures and woodland as they came lower, creeping towards the lake that took up most of the valley floor, leaving only just enough room for this village and the road. The occasional bird swooped low over the surface of the water, but very little else moved under his watch. It was a far cry from the suburbs of the busy industrial city he himself had grown up, always surrounded by motion and action and _people._

He considered idly living in a place like this, but his thoughts shifted quickly to the idea of him _and Bilbo_ living somewhere similar, perhaps in a converted farmhouse. They would have a conservatory like this, overlooking the mountains, where they could curl up in armchairs and just _be_ and…

Bilbo returned with two measures of whiskey, and passed on to Thorin without comment at his slightly dazed expression.

It took a moment for Thorin to fully realise that he had zoned out, but when he came too he tried the unnamed whisky, nodding his approval and Bilbo’s questioning glance – it wasn’t a whisky he recognized, but it was good.

Bilbo smiled at him, before turning to stare out across the lake.

They sat in content silence for a while, until Thorin prompted Bilbo to pick something to eat – the whole purpose of them coming out here, after all, was apparently for the food, though Thorin was starting to realise that it was as much the place as it was the offer of dinner that had prompted Bilbo to drive them both out here. The smaller man seemed lost in contemplation, so Thorin took charge of ordering their meal once Bilbo had scanned through the menu; the barmaid seemed quite amused at the pair of them, having caught sight of the gentle way that Thorin had pressed an open menu into Bilbo’s hands, and the responding embarrassed glance that came when Bilbo realised that he had been unfocused, zoned out as he stared across the lake.

Thorin was not overly concerned about the silence: there was something peaceful about being with someone who didn’t feel the need to fill every gap in conversation. He amused himself watching Bilbo with a soft, half-smile quirked across his mouth; Bilbo’s eyes would flicker from mountain top to ripple in the water, looking without really seeing anything. His mouth was just a little open, his lower lip protracting _just_ slightly. Thorin wished for a moment that it was he with the camera; that was a look that he wished to preserve.

He wondered what the other was thinking of, but did not press for an answer: if he wanted to talk, then he would, and Thorin would not try to force it out of him.

Instead, he slipped his phone out of his pocket, on the pretence of checking his messages (there was no signal this far into the countryside, but luckily Bilbo didn’t remember this) and snuck a quick photograph of him. The quality was hardly the same, but it still drew a smile from him when he glanced down at him.

When the food did arrive – a slow roasted lamb shank for Thorin, and a salt-baked trout for Bilbo, served with herby roast vegetables and dauphinoise potatoes – Bilbo blinked, and came back to himself, smiling apologetically at Thorin and running a hand through his curls, sending them haphazardly on end.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’ve dragged you all the way out here and now I’m being terrible company.”

Thorin shook his head.

He wished that he could properly explain to Bilbo that he honestly didn’t care what they did when they were together, because regardless of what he was Thorin would end up enjoying it because of the _company;_ he wondered for a moment how he might explain that he found it reassuring that Bilbo could trail off in a daze when with him, that how comfortable Bilbo felt around him was a precious thought to him, one he held close to himself, for he was not entirely the kind of person that inspired that kind of closeness in others outside his family, was not used to people feeling _relaxed_ around him. But he enjoyed their silences and being able to watch Bilbo’s expressions as he thought; it was nice to be able to just _be_ with someone without expectation or pressure. Bilbo never seemed to ask for anything other than _him,_ as if that really was enough.

Thorin smiled at him, a gentle half-smile that eased Bilbo’s worry, his shoulders sinking a little in relief as he smiled in return.

“I don’t mind,” Thorin told him. “Really. Eat.”

Bilbo smiled down at his plate, pressing a knee against Thorin’s underneath the table.

It seemed that Thorin didn’t really need to say it all out loud; he rather thought that Bilbo understood.

They ate quietly as the sun began to sink lower and lower in the sky, the light beginning to bleed into softer, darker blues and warm streaks of pink. The food was excellent – possibly even worth the lengthy drive just to have - the view was spectacular and Thorin’s second whiskey warming (Bilbo had forgone a second, conscious that he was driving).

“I like it here,” Bilbo told him. “No matter how stressful my week, this view never fails to calm me down.”

Thorin pressed their knees together more firmly underneath the table, urging Bilbo to continue. His final edits for the Arkena shoot had been due this week, and it had been a long five days in his preparation for presenting them. Thorin had barely seen him until last night, when Bilbo had called him asking if he was free; he’d appeared outside Thorin’s door twenty minutes later, looking exhausted and about ready to drop.

Thorin didn’t mind. He was starting to think he’d quite like to be the one to catch him.

He’d wrapped Bilbo up in one of his jumpers, that hung down Bilbo’s legs it was so oversized, fed him pizza and half-carried him into bed, burying his nose in the smaller man’s neck and drifting off to sleep listening to the steady in-and-out of his breathing.

“Will you come with me some place tomorrow?” Bilbo had asked, half-mumbling as he was falling asleep, “Just for a bit?”

Thorin had of course agreed, which was how they had ended up here, after a long and lazy morning (and possibly early afternoon) spent wrapped around each other, skin on skin, in bed.

“Do you come here often?” Thorin asked as the sun dipped below the mountains. It was the first words of conversation in a few minutes, and Bilbo glanced across at him speculatively for a moment; Thorin caught the look, and shot back what he was hoping was a reassuring look in return; he honestly did want to know.

Bilbo shook his head. “None of my family live around here anymore, so I don’t really have any reason to. Just when I’m feeling a bit rubbish – coming back here always makes everything seem a little easier afterwards, you know?”

Thorin didn’t, not really, but he nodded all the same.

“I’ve never brought anyone else here,” Bilbo admitted, glancing carefully at him from across their empty plates, pausing as a waitress stopped by to side away for them. The momentary intrusion of the server stopped their conversation for a moment, and by the time she had left them Bilbo was looking out across the lake again. “It’s an important place to me.”

It was his home, Thorin knew, but he realised it was also more than that: it was a place of comfort, a place he could come to feel secure and happy. It was private, and he remembered for a moment his father’s old house, that still lay abandoned, guttered by fire. The three of them had inherited it, Frerin, Dis and he, and none of them had ever tried to rebuild it. The damage too extensive, the memories too painful: he didn’t think his brother or sister had ever been back.

He had, though.

There was something comforting about the smoke-blasted fragments of walls, the crackle of broken glass underfoot. It was _his,_ for all that it was bleak. One of the garden benches had survived, and sometimes he went there to think, or just to get away from people. It was as this place was to Bilbo; old, and distant from his life now, and no doubt imbued with painful memories, but home none the less, and for that it still afforded something no other place could give.

He would like to show it to Bilbo, he realised, the next time he chose to go.

The realisation made something warm light inside his chest.

Thorin glanced down at the table, smiling gently.

“Thank you then, for bringing me here.”

There was a light flush across Bilbo’s collarbone, and he ducked his head, smiling back.

“Thank you, for coming.”

Thorin gave in then, and reached out to cup Bilbo’s jaw in one hand, stroking gently before tucking a wayward curl behind Bilbo’s ear.

“You are more than welcome,” he replied with a smile.

Bilbo didn’t take him anywhere else that day, though despite the village’s size there were several places that he might have wanted to show. If they had turned into the village proper he could have shown Thorin the war memorial that he’d had his first kiss next to, or the smaller beach further along where he had gone paddling almost every summer day as a boy; there was the little stone church where his parents had married, or the copse of trees just past where he used to smuggle away to smoke illicit cigarettes as a teenager; the house he had grown up in still looked the same from the outside, despite the new owners, and the flowers that bloomed in its garden were remnants of his mother’s careful work. Several of his father’s sculptures still decorated the town, from the large stonework on the shore to the piece he created after Bilbo’s mother’s death, still sat half way between the church and the main square.

No, despite the fact that Thorin would happily have followed him, he didn’t show him any of the memories ingrained in the rock and tree of the little place.

But, Bilbo thought to himself as they pulled away over the moors again, the dark night pressing sleepily in around their car, completely oblivious to the similar thoughts that were rolling through Thorin’s mind; but though he didn’t show them to Thorin today, he knew with an unarguable clarity that someday soon, he would.

 

\--

 

“Uncle Thorin!”

Thorin ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face with a muted groan.

“What do you want, Kili?”

His youngest nephew grinned at him as he made his was across the office, shucking his coat off and dropping it on a spare chair rather than on the coat rack, and – not for the first time – Thorin was struck by how much Kili had grown up. The way he acted made it difficult to remember, but there were moments like these, when Thorin just caught sight of him, when he was struck with the sudden realisation that he wasn’t their little boy anymore.

His face softened a little as Kili beamed at him, his violin case slung over his back by its strap, the sight of it triggering a memory that probably should have occurred to him earlier.

“Oh, it was your final review today, wasn’t it? How did it go?”

Kili beamed, delighted that his Uncle had remembered, and Thorin stood, stretching.

“Really well, they said I had definitely passed, and I think I’ll be well graded for it.”

Thorin tugged him into a one-armed hug, his hand cupping the back of Kili’s head and ruffling his hair as he pushed him against his shoulder. Kili laughed against the fabric of his suit, and Thorin found a small, fond smile curve across his face.

“Well done, Kili.”

“Thanks, Uncle.” Kili’s voice was a little muffled against Thorin’s shoulder, and he reluctantly let him go.

When had his nephew got to be as tall as him?

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, “Shouldn’t you be out celebrating with your friends?”

Kili laughed. “We went for a few drinks already, don’t worry. Fee said he’d meet me here when I told him we were done.”

Now that he had mentioned it, Thorin could see that Kili’s eyes were a little too bright, and his grin a little too wide for him to be entirely sober, but he couldn’t really blame him: it was still mid-afternoon, but most students ended up in the pub at the end of their finals, and he really couldn’t blame them – he remembered his own days at university quite well enough, thank you.

Several people had expected him to protest at Kili’s choice in degree subject, particularly after Fili had opted to follow in the family footsteps and study architecture. But Thorin had known the feeling of a being brought up under the pressure of expectations, and had never wanted that for his boys: he would rather them do something they loved rather than something they felt like they had to do. He’d taken Fili aside when he had first announced what he intended to study, to make sure he knew that no one expected it of him, but it seemed that a young life spent in and out of Thorin’s workplace, and hearing their discussions on projects, had inspired a genuine interest in architecture – and for all that he wouldn’t want Fili to have been coerced into the role, Thorin was secretly pleased that he had someone to pass on the company to.

Although he had managed to completely mess up that conversation and leave eighteen-year-old Fili convinced that his Uncle didn’t think he was _good_ enough to study architecture, though how he’d reached that conclusion he would never know. Dis had hit him _really_ hard around the back of the head when she had figured it out, and it had taken some convincing for Fili to believe that his Uncle really was proud of him, and believed in him.

Kili had always been a little different, had always decided to do things his own way, but Thorin had been equally concerned about him: he had a driving urge to prove himself, to make his family proud of him, never quite seeming to understand that they already were, and always would be, regardless of what he did in life. Thorin rather suspected that Fili might have sat his younger brother down and talked it out at some point, but he had always tried to be as supportive as possible of Kili’s music degree, to make sure he understood that they would always be content with his choices.

And Thorin really had been glad, because music made Kili happy, and that was really all he wanted.

He turned back to the applications he had been sorting as Kili propped himself up on Balin’s desk, their cousin asking him questions about the piece he had played in his review; Thorin had long ago given in trying to follow musical conversations, but Balin had always managed to keep up quite successfully. The paperwork had been piling up recently, and despite his intense hatred of the stuff, he had put the week aside to go through everything, and get it all out of the way.

Thorin turned back to his desk, his dark mood growing once again as he contemplated his work. Dwalin began to tease Kili, and his nephew reacted the same way he had when he was a kid, easily riled up and quickly turning to loud retorts. The problem with having family as close as theirs was that they had an innate ability to push all of your buttons without even trying.

Thorin cursed quietly as something fell against the floor with a clatter.

“Be quiet, the lot of you!”

Kili pursed his lips, craning a little to try and see what Thorin was doing, what particular papers were the focus of the intense frown on his Uncle’s face.

“What’s put you in such a bad mood, Uncle?”

Dwalin laughed.

“It’s the internship time of year again, lad.”

Kili made a noise of understanding, and backed slowly away from the desk, like an unsuspecting hiker who’d been confronted with a bear in the wild. Thorin rolled his eyes in irritation at him, a little annoyed that his nephew was staring at him as if he were about to snap his head off. He shot a glare at Dwalin.

“The internships have got nothing to do with it.”

“But Uncle,” Kili replied, eyes wide, “you _hate_ your interns. I’d rather not get caught in the cross-fire. Dwalin said you sulked for a _week_ when Fili said he wouldn’t intern with you.”

Thorin glared at his cousin.

“I do not _sulk,_ ” he spat out. “I just thought it would have been a good opportunity for Fili to learn the ropes here.”

Dwalin rolled his eyes.

“Thorin, the lad’s spent hours here since he was shorter than the drawing boards, you were just mad because you thought you’d got out of picking an intern for the year.”

Thorin was silent for a moment, trying to think of an appropriate response to this, but since Dwalin was entirely correct there wasn’t much he could do. He simply rolled his shoulders back, trying – and mostly succeeding – at looking as if he couldn’t care less.

“I wouldn’t hate them so much if they weren’t entirely useless.”

Dwalin snorted.

“They’re only kids.”

Thorin frowned.

“I don’t expect anything from them that I wouldn’t have expected from myself at that age.”

Balin and Dwalin exchanged a rather meaningful noise, but any further argument was cut off by Fili, came out of the lift bearing gifts enough to settle any storm – coffees and slices of cake from Stein.  Though their now unanimously favourite coffee house hadn’t started out doing take out, the owner had started to provide it for regulars, although there were still a fair number of people who were addressed with a frown and a shake of the head when they asked for the same thing. It was a wonderfully British attitude to have in a European café, and endlessly amusing when you were on the right side of the owner.

Fili deposited his load on a spare desk and grabbed his brother, squishing his face between his two hands, rubbing his knuckles against his scalp when Kili managed to escape.

“Well done, little brother!”

Thorin sighed, and gave up on the applications for the day, shoving them unceremoniously back into the folder that Balin had handed to him that morning. Enough of that.

He bumped Fili’s shoulder in thanks as he came over, and took his coffee.

Fili glanced up at him in surprise.

“Giving up on work already, Uncle?”

The corner of Thorin’s mouth twitched upwards, in something close to a smile.

“For today.”

Fili stared at him, a little surprised, and Thorin just shrugged and nodded at Kili as his younger nephew turned his beaming smile to the both of them.

 

\--

 

“Uncle Bilbo, _look!”_

Bilbo smiled affectionately down at his little nephew, who was tugging him insistently towards the great wall of glass on the far side of the room. Frodo was beaming fit to burst, his wayward dark curls askew across his head, almost jumping up and down in excitement.

“Do you like it?”

Frodo stared up at him, his big blue eyes wide and overjoyed, nodding hard enough that his curls bounced.

“It’s so _cool_!”

From his other side, Thorin nudged him.

“I _told_ you.”

An amused smile crept over Bilbo’s face, though he tried to keep it in check: he didn’t want Thorin to think he was _right,_ after all.

“Oh shush you.”

Thorin chuckled, clearly unconvinced.

He wasn’t sure how Thorin had ended up tagging along on one of his regular days out with young Frodo, but was quite pleased that he here none the less. He did hope that Prim wouldn’t mind, but rather suspected that her objection would probably have been that Frodo got to meet him before she did – Bilbo was still putting that off though. Whilst he hadn’t doubted that he would be able to cope with Thorin’s rather overdramatic family, he wasn’t quite convinced that Prim wouldn’t scare Thorin off _entirely_.

When the rain had come pouring down on their way to the park Bilbo had been stumped, but Thorin had suggest an aquarium – apparently once Fili’s favourite place to go on a rainy day. Bilbo had been unconvinced, not sure how a building full of fish would have been able to sustain the interest of his excitable nephew for long, but it seemed that he was wrong: Frodo was pressed up against a tank full of iridescent jellyfish, utterly enraptured, and the day was saved.

“It is nice here, though,” he admitted, as Frodo glanced back at them to make sure they were still there. “I will give you that.”

Thorin chuckled, knocking their shoulders gently together.

Bilbo himself was having much more of a good time than he was willing to let on, though he was unwilling to admit to Thorin that this was his first time in an aquarium, too. There hadn’t been any near where he lived growing up, and his adventures with his parents had normally been out into the hills around his home village, exploring waterfalls and moorland. Rainy days had been spent in his father’s workshop or garage, or else in his family’s ever growing library: he’d never had a cause to go to one once he’d grown up.

He’d expected tanks of fish, pretty but underwhelming: instead he was faced with _walls_ of glass, twice his height and in some cases as long as his entire living room, behind which swam every kind of marine life possible to imagine, as well as some he had never even thought possible.

“Uncle Bilbo, can we go see the sharks?”

Frodo looked impossibly excited at the idea, and Bilbo didn’t quite have the heart to tell him that they should probably progress around the aquarium in the set plan. Thorin seemed to read his mind, turning to him with raised eyebrows.

“The sharks are cool,” he told Bilbo gravely, and Frodo laughed, before hiding behind Bilbo’s legs. He swept alternately between staring adoringly at Thorin and hiding his blushing face from him, only occasionally forgetting his shyness in the face of this new adult.

“Sure,” Bilbo relented. “Let’s go see the sharks.”

His eyes were as wide as his nephews when they finally made their way to the shark tank, though it took some time, as Frodo kept getting distracted by various other creatures along the way. He’d never imagined something so big, and for a moment felt as young as his nephew.

The sharks were kept in an enormous tank, and through it ran hollow glass tubes through which the visitors could stand on an electronic walkway, leading them through a long and winding pathway through the giant tank. It gave the appearance of being underwater, and Frodo gasped every time a shark swam overhead, their pale underbellies almost ghostly in the eerie light.

“Uncle Bilbo, look at _that_ one,” he breathed. “Look at its _teeth!_ ”

Bilbo ruffled his hair affectionately.

“Careful,” he warned him. “He might eat you if you get too close.”

Frodo frowned at him.

“We’re safe _here,_ ” he told his Uncle with the unwavering authority that only a child can possess. “Don’t be silly.”

Bilbo snorted, remembering the days when he had been able to convince his nephew of just about anything.

At least he was still overwhelmed by places like that, though – Bilbo didn’t have any idea how he was going to entertain him when he was older, or even when he was Fili and Kili’s age. What was an Uncle to do when he couldn’t resort to pretty fish to keep a child interested?

Bilbo may have sounded flippant, but he was secretly a little captivated by the whole thing.

It really was something.

They stood on the electronic walkway, and Bilbo propped himself up against the moving hand-rail, him and Frodo staring upwards. Though he was trying to keep his excitement hidden it was obvious to Thorin, who watched the both of them, smirking when Bilbo’s mouth dropped open as a huge sting ray swept overhead, looking as if he were caressing the glass, his mouth and gills opening and closing rhythmically. The sharks were impressive, but he’d taken the boys here many times when they were children, and the sight of Bilbo staring in awe was a much more captivating sight.

There was a tug on his sleeve, and he turned his eyes to Frodo, who was looking shyly up at him.

The little boy held his arms out beseechingly, and Thorin was helpless to refuse.

By the time Bilbo’s attention was broken from the amazing sights, Frodo was happily in Thorin’s arms, propped up high on his chest, one arm wrapped around Thorin’s neck and the other pointing out creatures to the man, who was smiling gently at the young boy, nodding to everything he said and answering the litany of questions as best as he could.  

Bilbo wanted to protest – Thorin shouldn’t have been carrying around the young boy, it was hardly his job – but Thorin looked unspeakably pleased that Frodo had finally warmed to him, his face creased with a small but none the less genuine smile. He took a step closer to them and opened his mouth to say something when Frodo, excited at the sight of a huge jellyfish, grabbed hold of Thorin’s ear to lean up closer to the desk, eliciting a wince from the man.

But then Thorin laughed, looking suddenly younger, and Bilbo found his mouth closing, his attention turning back to the water instead.

And if, a few moments, Thorin moved just a little closer too, so that the line of Bilbo’s side pressed against Thorin’s chest, then he was not going to complain.

Not at all.

He did try and protest when, several hours later, Thorin insisted on buying Frodo one of the huge, fluffy sharks from the gift shop, but the other man would not be swayed. It did make Bilbo wonder just how many cuddly toys Fili and Kili had managed to wrangle from their Uncle at one point or another in their childhood though (and just how much that contributed to their attitude towards Thorin now).

By the time they were done the rain had quite passed over, and they walked back to Bilbo’s apartment together, Frodo skipping around puddles with the shark held tight with both arms, almost half as tall as he himself was.

Bilbo shook his head.

“He’s going to have a new favourite Uncle by the end of the day, I can tell. I’ll be right out the window. I have lunch, but that in no way competes with a shark.”

Thorin smirked before he quite realised what Bilbo had said. When he did, his eyes widened slightly.

“What?”

Bilbo blinked, confused.

“What do you mean, what?”

Thorin cleared his throat. “Uncle?”

Bilbo hooked one of his fingers around a couple of Thorin’s, not quite holding hands.

“Well, your nephews already call me Uncle,” he paused, glancing up at Thorin out of the corner of his eyes, fidgeting ever so slightly as he deliberated whether or not to say what he was thinking.

“Besides, if you’re going to be sticking around, he’ll end up calling you that soon anyway.”

Thorin stopped, taking both of Bilbo’s hands in his, turning him to face him (though he kept one eye on Frodo, who had stopped to examine a caterpillar just ahead of them). His face was grave, and for just a moment Bilbo was a little worried.

But then Thorin smiled.

“I think I’ll be around for quite some time.”

He pressed a kiss against Bilbo’s knuckles, bringing his hand up to face level.

“As long as you’ll have me, anyway.”

And it wasn’t quite an admission of love; but it was too soon for things like that, and Bilbo didn’t think that either of them were quite ready for it to be said out loud, but it was _so_ close. There was something undoubtable about the two of them being together, something that no amount of insecurity or fear could ever quite dampen: there was something inherently right about it all, an unspoken intimacy that only seemed to grow with each passing day.

“Well,” said Bilbo, fairly convinced that there was a blush growing high on his cheekbones. “I wasn’t planning on getting rid of you just yet.”

They stood there, smiling at each other for the longest moment, aware of all that was between them and all of the potential it still had.  

“Eww, Uncle Bilbo, hurry up!”

Thorin’s face creased into laughter and they pulled apart, turning to Frodo, who was staring at them, looking slightly affronted.

“It might start raining again,” he told them, puffing his chest out. “And I don’t want Thorin to get wet.”

Bilbo blinked, looking at his nephew in confusion. Frodo seemed to understand, so he held out his toy shark.

“He’s called Thorin.”

Bilbo started laughing.

“That is a very good name for a shark, sweatpea, and you’re right – we don’t want either of our Thorin’s to get caught in the rain, do we?”

Frodo shook his head, and they made their way back home, Thorin trying to fight back his flush – though whether it was one of embarrassment or pleasure, neither of them were quite sure.

 

\--

 

“So we’ve gone through your final edits, and we’re _very_ pleased with what you’ve done.”

Bilbo smiled across the table at the three marketing executives, trying not to look at the spread of black and white photographs across the table. There were a number of them in the end that he had submitted, and six would be initially selected from the commissioned twenty five portraits to be used in the ad campaign.

“Well, I’m glad,” replied Bilbo.

The particularly bright eyed exec – the one who had been so insistent on Thorin’s portraits being included in the run – smiled encouragingly at him.

“We’ve narrowed it down to our initial six, with a further four to be added in at a later date.”

That was more than Bilbo had been expecting them to use, and tried to hide his pleasure that they were so pleased with his work; he let just a pleased smile out, holding back his whoop of pleasure for when he was alone, and not trying to impress his current employers.

“Excellent, which ten were you planning on using?” he asked.

She pushed a slim folder towards him, with the ten chosen photographs, and Bilbo reached for it hesitantly.

There were two of Bard, looking stern and muscular, and another two of Gandalf – the more he looked at those ones, the prouder Bilbo was of them; there was something quite impressive about them, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. There was one of Prim, for their small but successful women’s line, and another two of a couple of other friends of his.

The final three (and he really shouldn’t have been surprised anymore) were all of Thorin.

“We particularly like those ones,” one exec said, with a grin, and Bilbo tried to will down the blush that was building across his throat. “Is he single?”

“ _No,”_ snapped Bilbo, a little more aggressively than he had intended.

He tried to ignore the amused expressions on their faces.

 

\--

 

“Thorin?”

“Hmmm?”

Bilbo smiled, burying his nose into the crook of Thorin’s bare shoulder. The afternoon sunlight shone through the window, dimmer now as the evening approached, and they had spent the entirety of their Sunday wrapped around each other in bed, dozing and making love and only getting out of bed to pad to the kitchen for food or to the bathroom to share a shower; even now Bilbo was lying on his side, pressed along the length of Thorin, who was on his back. Their legs were tangled, and Bilbo’s head was resting against the warmth of Thorin’s skin.

“You realise you’ve not been home in five days, right?”

Thorin stilled beside him, and Bilbo kissed his collarbone thoughtfully.

“I’m not complaining, you know.”

Thorin huffed an amused noise, and pressed a kiss to the crown of Bilbo’s head.

“Are you sure?”

Bilbo raised himself up on his elbow, smiling at him.

“Absolutely.”

It hadn’t been intentional, Thorin thought, but over the months a good number of his clothes had migrated to Bilbo’s; he kept various toiletries in the bathroom, his laptop charger was plugged in the living room, and his favourite beer was in the fridge. Most bizarre, however, was that Smeagol no longer tried to scratch him every time he came in: he only hissed and spat on occasion now. He often went days without returning to him own place, because he had little desire to leave. There was something wonderful about returning to a warm embrace and a soft kiss at the end of the day, to be able to wrap himself around Bilbo on the sofa with a glass of wine and listen to him talk about his day.

They might watch a film (they were slowly getting through each other’s favourites together) or perhaps just read, music playing quietly in the background. More often than not Thorin would just end up working, his laptop balanced on the arm of his sofa, but it never quite felt as dull as work normally did in the evening; that was probably due to the addition of a warm, comfortable man sat next to him, the lines of their arms pressed against each other (only because Bilbo normally protested about being lifted into Thorin’s lap, which was his personal favourite place to put Bilbo, and where the smaller man would spent the entirety of his time if Thorin had had anything to say on the matter).

Bilbo would make dinner, when Thorin didn’t insist on taking him out for food instead, and then they’d fall into bed together, warm and close. It was unspeakably domestic, and he loved it.

He shifted a little as Bilbo pressed closer.

“Hmm, I will need to go home soon though.”

Bilbo smiled, a hand stroking across the planes of Thorin’s stomach, feeling ridges of muscle.

“You can pick up more suits and come back, you know.”

Thorin smiled, his hips lifting a little as he stretched his body, heels digging into the soft covers. Bilbo’s bed was perhaps the most comfortable place he had ever been; he didn’t understand how the man managed to keep his bedding so _soft,_ his sheets so perfectly starched,or why his pillows seemed so implausibly fluffy, but he wasn’t going to complain as long as he was allowed access to it. The warm body next to him, lying along the length of his side and half-draped over his chest, was a particularly wonderful bonus.

“I would, but I need to have the boys over soon- I’ve barely seen them in the last few weeks, they’ve been too busy with exams to be around much.”

Bilbo laughed, laying back down against Thorin’s chest again.

“And I’ve been hogging you, haven’t I? I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Thorin replied, dragging a hand down the length of Bilbo’s side, tracing the soft dip of his stomach and the jut of his hip bone, stroking across the soft indent just above his hip. “But I want to hear how it all went.”

Bilbo hummed his response, agreeing. It was sweet how Thorin still seemed to consider his nephews as children a lot of the time, worrying about them as if they were his own. He supposed that they essentially _were_ his sons, the true nature of their relationship aside.

“They’re good lads,” Bilbo told him, “They’ll have done fine.”

He sat up a little, just enough that he was able to reach and press a kiss to Thorin’s mouth, meaning to lie back down afterwards. But Thorin seemed to have other ideas; he pressed into the kiss, sitting up a little himself, catching Bilbo’s lower lip between his teeth and sucking gently. Bilbo spread his hands across the curve of Thorin’s shoulders, humming in satisfaction as he softened the kiss, pushing Thorin back down against the pillows, sprawled half on top of him.

Thorin’s eyes were warm, crinkling around the corners.

Bilbo rubbed their noses together, pressing quick, light kisses wherever he could reach.

“You daft man.”

Thorin smiled.

“ _Your_ daft man.”

Bilbo blushed, hiding his face in Thorin’s neck, shushing him in his embarrassment. Such things were wonderfully pleasant to hear, but even so he couldn’t help but flush when Thorin said things like that, things that made something warm ignite in his chest.

“You’d better be,” he muttered back against Thorin’s skin.

He got a chuckle in response, and Thorin tugged at the covers, covering them both a little more securely, nosing at Bilbo’s curls with a soft, contented huff. Bilbo turned his face to the side slightly, and Thorin brushed his lips along the curve of his ear, nibbling slightly.

He felt his eyes close as Thorin’s hand began to rub gently up and down his side again, slowly dozing off. He wasn’t entirely sure how long he fell asleep for, but he was woken abruptly by the vibration of Thorin’s phone against his bedside table; from the start next to him, it seemed Thorin had dozed off as well. The taller man reached blindly for the phone, patting the surface of the table until he got a hold of it.

He made a noise of disgust when he saw the message.

“Who is it?”

“My sister,” replied Thorin. “Thinking she’s hilarious.”

“Dis has an excellent sense of humour,” Bilbo teased. “I don’t think I’ve known anyone to laugh as much, except perhaps Fili and Kili.”

Thorin smiled, though Bilbo could not see it to note the slight sadness to it.

“She never used to be like that,” Thorin replied. “She used to be much more taciturn, much more withdrawn.”

“So more like you?” Bilbo said, teasingly, and Thorin poked him in retribution.

“Quiet, you.”

Bilbo laughed, burrowing even closer to Thorin. “So what changed?”

Thorin’s fingertips traced a gentle line up to his shoulder and then back down to his hip again, though it was obvious that he was lost in thought.

“It was the boy’s father that drew that out of her,” hfe replied eventually. “And even after he died, she made sure not to let that go. I’m glad for her.”

“I never would have guessed,” said Bilbo, “She always seems so upbeat.”

He caught sight of Thorin’s sceptical expression out of the corner of his eye. “What, am I wrong?”

“No…” said Thorin, frowning for a moment. “You’re not wrong, but that’s just not normally the first thing that people notice about her.”

“No?” asked Bilbo, “What do they normally see?”

Thorin shrugged. “She’s pretty hard when she wants to be, and she can be very intimidating.”

His expression was still a little sad, so Bilbo pressed a little closer, saying the first thing that came to mind to try and distract him.

“What was the first thing you noticed about _me_?” asked Bilbo, his fingertips tracing the faint indentations of Thorin’s ribcage. “Or were you too busy glaring to really pay attention?”

Thorin grumbled from underneath him; the sound sent pleasant vibrations through Bilbo’s own chest.

“I was not _glaring_.”

Bilbo raised his head a little to look him dead in the eye.

“You were, and you know it,” he replied, a smile curving the corners of his mouth. “There is absolutely no other word to explain the expression on your face.”

“I was _vexed,”_ Thorin argued, a hand ghosting through Bilbo’s curls briefly. “I had been ready to be furious at you, but before you even saw me you were complaining that Gandalf had sold the portrait, and defending a stranger’s right to a peaceful coffee.”

Bilbo snorted.

“I’m your knight in shining armour, clearly.”

Thorin huffed a laugh, and pulled Bilbo up the bed to bury his face in his neck, nipping gently at Bilbo’s skin. The smaller man laughed, wriggling a little in protest, only for Thorin to dig his fingers into his sides, ticking him mercilessly.

“Get away, you lump!”

Bilbo tried to pull away, but Thorin’s hands stilled and his arms wrapped around him, holding him tight to his chest. Bilbo’s attempts to escape thwarted, he relaxed against the warmth of the man underneath him, his hands reaching up to comb gently through Thorin’s mussed hair.

“Seriously though, what was the first thing you noticed about me?”

Thorin sighed as the gentle touch, his head falling back against the pillow.

“Hmmm. I remember feeling conflicted, because I wanted to yell at you, but you looked too…” he trailed off, and Bilbo shot him a glare.

“If you say cute I’ll kick you out.”

Thorin grinned against his curls.

“I’ll say nothing then.”

 

\--

 

Bilbo wasn’t even surprised when Fili and Kili threw themselves down next to him, Thorin trailing after them with an apologetic half-smile.

“Uncle Bilbo!”

“Fancy seeing you here!”

He wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the two of them speaking in unison, as if they shared some kind of psychic bond. He just shot them an affectionate, half-exasperated smile that quickly turned into something fonder as Thorin squeezed his shoulder before slipping into one of the other spare seats.

“Hmm,” replied Bilbo, eyeing them suspiciously. “I’m sure you had no idea that I would be here.”

Their grins only grew, not even slightly apologetic.

“We missed you!”

“You saw me last week.”

Kili threw an arm around his shoulders, pulling him against his chest in a quick hug.

“ _Exactly._ ”

He shook his head as the waitress came over to take their order, extracting himself from Kili’s enthusiastic embrace, his knee brushing against Thorin’s under the table.

“I am supposed to be having a meeting, you know.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Kili replied unrepentantly at the exact same time as his brother commented: “Looks like you’re having a coffee.”

Bilbo couldn’t really argue, as indeed he was drinking coffee in his favourite booth against one of the short walls, the portrait of Thorin to his left. Though it had once filled him with guilt to look at it, these days he felt nothing but a sort of pleased satisfaction at the sight, knowing that it had changed his life so pleasantly since he had accidentally taken it.  If Thorin had not had a coffee that day, if he had not taken a photograph of that particular part of Café Stein, they might never have met.

He caught sight of Thorin following the line of his sight and shaking his head slightly at the picture, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly in a way that Bilbo was coming to realise meant that fond, happy thoughts were running through his mind.

He supposed some thanks had to go to Gandalf, too – if he had not cropped the photograph down, seen its potential, then it might never had become a part of his exhibition.

Which was why he tolerated waiting around for his old friend, even if the gallery owner was half an hour late to their meeting, which he had set up himself.

“I’d be having a meeting if Gandalf had bothered to show up on time,” he remarked.

Okay, so he could still be a little annoyed.

He did have things to do, you know.

Gandalf had disappeared three weeks before, without word or warning, only to have gotten in touch yesterday to inform that he was back, and would very much like to meet to discuss Bilbo’s latest coffee table book – the one he had been in the Scottish Highlands for all those months previously. Bilbo was very aware that this was probably just an excuse to nose into Bilbo’s life some more, but he was well used to this kind of thing from his old friend, and had been happy enough to agree.

Although sitting around and waiting for him was not how Bilbo had wanted to spend his afternoon.

His irritation was only made worse by the knowledge that, if he had tried to tell Gandalf off on the subject, his friend would have simply raised his eyebrows in amusement, and would inform Bilbo that he was _never_ late, and only arrived precisely when he meant to.

Which really wasn’t all that comforting.

But before he could launch into a rant about Gandalf’s poor time keeping – either vocally or in his head – the bell above the door rang, and the well-dressed man wandered in, a slight smile quirking his mouth as he caught sight of the group. He shook his umbrella off and propped it in the stand, coming over to take the last seat at the table, casting his eye appraisingly over the four of them.

“And how are we all?”

Fili and Kili responded enthusiastically, Thorin rolled his eyes, and Bilbo resisted the urge to stick his tongue out. He was a grown man, after all.

“Busy,” he replied, to which Gandalf smiled.

“Ah, then it is a good job I came when I did, though I see you have other much more diverting company to keep you happy in the meantime. Do remind me, dear boy – I have some news from a friend, a job that you might be interested in.”

Bilbo glared at him suspiciously.

“The last time you told me that I ended up on a very unpleasant adventure.”

Gandalf didn’t look in the least bit repentant.

“If you’re referring to that incident with the _lizards_ then I was barely involved.”

“That’s a damn lie.”

Gandalf sucked on his lower lip appraisingly.

“Well, perhaps. But that is in the past, now. How have you been?”

Bilbo gave in. “I’ve been good, thank you. And where on earth have you been?”

“Rome,” Gandalf replied, with a strange sort of smile, before turning his rather knowing gaze to Thorin, then back to Bilbo. “Hmm, I’m sure you have been.”

Bilbo’s hand found Thorin’s under the table, and the taller man shot him a small, sweet smile.

Fili rolled his eyes, but refrained from commenting.

“By the way, Thorin, a friend of mine over at Arkena showed me the new advertising campaign. Those photographs of you are simply _wonderful,_ you’re clearly a man of many talents. Who knew, an architect _and_ a model.”

Thorin almost spat out his coffee.

Well, thought Bilbo. They had been doing so well at keeping it a secret, as well.

Fili and Kili’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

Bilbo wondered what the best way to hide a body would be. In the boot of his car, he decided. Then up onto the moors with a shovel. Thorin was strong, he would be able to dig a grave quite easily.

“Uncle,” began Kili, a grin already spreading across his face, “What-”

“Not a word. Not a damn word. Or I’m telling your mother about the time you turned up drunk at mine dressed as a chicken.”

Kili’s mouth opened a moment, before a speculative expression crossed his face.

“You know,” he replied slowly, “I almost think it would be worth it.”

Bilbo resolved to get _that_ story out of Thorin at the next available opportunity, but for the meantime he contented himself with glaring at Gandalf. The old man had _known_ that that was supposed to be kept under wraps. So much for Thorin’s family never finding out.

And who was Fili texting under the table?

More importantly, did Thorin have any decent blackmail material against his eldest nephew? Because so far he’d only managed to – maybe – silence one.

“I think cake is in order,” commented Gandalf glibly, as if he hadn’t just thrown Thorin’s life into ruin. He smiled up at the waitress who brought over his coffee. “Is there any sachertorte today?”

The rain continued to thunder down outside, and the five of them settled comfortably back in their booth, the café warm and cosy. The summer storms had been rolling in with increasing frequency over the last month, leaving crisp, warm sunshine in their wake. Bilbo would have liked to complain about the weather, but only the other day it had resulted him and Thorin waking under one umbrella, pressed close to each other, and anything that ended up close physical contact with Thorin was enough to escape his wrath.

“Why Rome?” asked Bilbo, Gandalf’s perpetual mystery still a niggle in his mind.

If he had expected an answer he was to be disappointed: before Gandalf could even respond the owner of the café had made his way over to them, a large tray in his hands, bearing their plates of the rich, dark chocolate cake that Vienna was famous for. It was a personal favourite, so Bilbo wasn’t too annoyed at the interruption, settling a little closer to Thorin as the older man slid his arm around his lower back, hand settling against his hip.

The owner, always a little gruff, looked positively incensed, though Bilbo couldn’t think of a reason for his anger. A less refined man might have slammed the plates down, but there was still something to be said about the passive-aggressive silence of his actions as he distributed the cake. His glare remained perfectly fixed on Gandalf, which should not have been that surprising given the older man’s ability to infuriate anyone he spent more than a few moments with.

Bilbo idly wondered if the curator had done something in particular to the man, or if irritation was just the normal response to Gandalf’s presence. He rather suspected the latter.

Gandalf beamed up at the owner, either not noticing or not caring at the unfriendly reception.

“Thank you, they look as wonderful as ever.”

The owner grunted in response, but Gandalf continued none the less.

“I was very impressed with your brother’s work, by the way. Do tell him to look out for my call, won’t you?”

The man’s anger only seemed to intensify as he tucked the tray under his arm. He pointed a finger menacingly at Gandalf, a threat which seemed only too real in the face of the man’s surprising size. Bilbo had never really paid attention to him before, noticing his height but never really noticing the size of his shoulders, the bulking muscle of his frame. He was perhaps only a few years younger than Gandalf, but his build was that of a much younger man.

Former military, Bilbo thought, or perhaps the police force. It could easily have been either.

What was he doing running a Viennese coffee shop?

“You stay away from my brother.”

He turned and stormed away.

“Good to see you too, Dori,” Gandalf called after him.

Gandalf watched him leave with a small, fond smile before turning back to his cake, seemingly unconcerned with the threat. Bilbo was left to no doubt that any number of threats would make no difference to the gallery owner when it came to things he had already decided on, and he knew he would not be surprised if Gandalf ended up meddling with this brother’s life regardless.

Bilbo raised an eyebrow, nudging Thorin, whose ears were still burning red from his earlier embarrassment.

“See? It’s not just our lives he interferes in.”

Thorin snorted, nabbing a plate of cake without comment.

And Gandalf, over the rim of his coffee cup, just _twinkled._

 

\--

 

Thorin might have gotten away with minimal teasing on the subject of his modelling – after all, it was only a few photographs, and he had the excuse of saying it was only so Bilbo would get the contract. Despite his family’s teasing, he knew that none of them would disagree that it had been the right thing to do for other man, who had so quickly settled into place alongside the rest of his family.

Yes, he might have avoided too much laughter.

But that was before _this._

He should have known something was wrong when Dwalin had insisted on going to a different place for lunch, leading him in the opposite direction from the office to their usual haunts.

He should have known from the shit-eating grin on his cousin’s face.

“Fuck.”

Dwalin’s expression was one of an over-joyed child on Christmas.

“Thought you’d like it.”

“Fuck.”

Thorin couldn’t quite bring himself to say anything else. He felt for his phone – Bilbo was going to get _such_ an earful for this, even if Thorin suspected he hadn’t known that it was going to happen.

“Don’t you like it?” Dwalin’s voice was teasing, not at all serious – he quite obviously knew that Thorin wouldn’t be happy.

“Fuck.”

Because there, rendered in all of its fifty foot by fifteen foot glory was a billboard.

The kind that showed advertisements.

Adverts for companies running new campaigns.

Companies like Arkerna.

There, staring down at him in huge proportions, in high-quality black and white, was his own portrait, the watch on his wrist evident, the brand symbol blazing white from the corner.

He was on a billboard.

_This was so much worse than the photograph._

_\--_

_I have done my research, and love_  
is not a state of being. It is a house  
that takes up the whole world.  
We can be anywhere  
except apart from each other.

Clementine von Radics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've stuck with me, thank you so much! I really wasn't expecting the level of support and response that I got for this story, and it really has been incredibly inspiring. I hope you'll be happy with how I've wrapped this up, but it isn't the last of this verse. 
> 
> You'll note that this is now the first of a series, which includes a set of side stories already, for anyone who might be interested. I'll be posting the first chapter of a companion fic later on today -- there will be multiple pairings appearing in later stories, come hit me up on tumblr if you have any questions. :)
> 
> New photoset here:  
> http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/88264912617/final-chapter-of-candid-is-up-here-i-have-done-my
> 
> shamingcows has drawn the most precious things ever:  
> http://shamingcows.tumblr.com/post/88272571753/babu-frodo-and-thorin-from-candid-ch-4-so-many  
> http://shamingcows.tumblr.com/post/88275520538/well-its-not-much-cyan-pencil-hates-being
> 
> and, very excitingly:  
> http://shamingcows.tumblr.com/post/88967860438/he-looked-like-hed-had-a-few-late-nights-in-the

**Author's Note:**

> Note the shameless plug of ewebean's pug AU. Because Thorin... and pugs. It breaks my mind in all the right ways.
> 
> The incredible shamingcows has drawn some [beautiful art](http://shamingcows.tumblr.com/post/88967860438/he-looked-like-hed-had-a-few-late-nights-in-the) for this fic, and I couldn't be happier, more grateful, or more astounded that someone has managed to create something that corresponds so well with my mental image:  
> 


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